Old Friends

I'm still plugging away with work and have barely scratched the surface on decorating, but I'm getting there, slow and steady wins the race right?!

Each year when I pull out all of my Christmas decor, there are a few items that appear like old friends.  They are the tried and true, the items you wouldn't part with no matter how much money someone offered you for them, or how tattered and torn they become.

When we remodeled our house, we had planned to add a fireplace but decided to wait and put one into the sunroom which is still in the works...maybe Santa will bring me a sunroom?!  So last year I needed to find a way to display our Christmas stockings even though we lacked a mantel.

Enter the horse pull I found at The Vintage Source's Christmas sale last year.  I love it and think it's the perfect substitute until we build our room with a big stone fireplace.

The reason I needed a way to display our stockings is because these aren't your run of the mill stockings, they were made with loving care by Mr. Tide's grandmother, Grammamom!

By the time Mr. Tide and I got married, both of my grandmothers had passed on, so I was fortunate that he still had his mother's mother and a step grandmother on his father's side.  Both women were wonderful people who treated me as if I had always been one of their grandchildren.

We married in June, and by that Christmas Grammamom had already knitted me a stocking to match the one she had knitted for Mr. Tide when he was just a little tyke!  I was both surprised and delighted to have one of these treasures made with so much love.

When our daughter came along she once again knitted a stocking to join our family of beautiful stockings.  Since our daughter was born on Constitution Day, she added a little American Flag to the stocking.  She was like that, smart, thoughtful, and caring.

Each stocking features a Santa complete with a soft mohair beard, sequined trim and two tiny silver bells, one adorning Santa's hat and another at the tip of the toe.

When our son was born, Grammamom was getting on in years, but she still managed to make him his very own stocking.  His was the last one she knitted herself for the grandchildren.  Mr. Tide's mom, a talented needle worker in her own right, took over the duties for the last granddaughter.

I keep these treasures tucked in a box in my Hepplewhite chest in the living room for safe keeping the rest of the year, but during the holidays I can't wait to open the box and take each one carefully out, admire their beautiful handiwork, and then hang them in anticipation of being filled by Santa on Christmas Eve. 

I have a few other old friends that greet me each year as I decorate, like the December angel above.  These were popular in the 1960's when I was little, and each of us had one representing the month of our birth.  Since I'm a December baby mine gets displayed each year during my birth month.  I love her pretty poinsettia and her sweet face.  She even has a little set of bells on the side of her skirt.
 

The little reindeer above has seen many Christmases over the years and she's a bit frayed and missing her bell, but each year when I was little she sat on my dresser next to my toothpick tree!

Did any of you have a snow covered toothpick tree?  My mom made one for all 4 of us, each with little balls that fit on the end of each toothpick.  The balls each represented our favorite colors.  My brother's were gold, my sister K had purple, my sister M had pink, and mine were blue!

It's funny how many memories you can evoke with something as simple as an old ratty reindeer isn't it?  I think that's what I love most about Christmastime, no matter how far some of our loved ones are away from us, their memory lives on through the little things we cherish.  Maybe that's why so many of us work so hard to create those sorts of memories for our own children!