Thursday, December 11, 2008

O Christmas Tree

Today at Internet Cafe Devotions it's the Christmas tour of homes...in other words, showing off our Christmas decorations!

Now, for starters, you really should pop over here and see this fabulous tree setup. It made me giggle, and giggles are good. ☺

So, if you missed the story about how we got our tree, you really should click over and read it. It's very exciting (and involves me being both Burly and Alaskan!)

We live in extremely rural Alaska (for a clearer understanding of what I mean by 'rural' you should read this or this). All our Christmas stuff is in boxes in my in laws garage 2000 miles away. Last year we spent Christmas with my family, so we didn't need any of our stuff...and this year it just wasn't high enough on the priority list to bring it. So we're having a very homemade Christmas! I did order a couple of strings of twinkle lights, but we've been without a mail plane for a week now, and so the lights have not arrived. So we have just our tree:
(Remember the grand question of how to stand it up without a stand? Enter big bucket with some rocks!) (The presents are in the box for now...it keeps the kiddos and the doggie out of them)
Our trees here have to survive Alaskan winters, so they are pretty sparce as far as branches go. Our tree happened to be growing right next to another one, so it's flat. I'm not joking, here is a side view:
Our tree has homemade strings of popcorn and cranberries (actually craisins); oranges sliced, sprinkled with cloves, then dehydrated in the oven (they smell SO good); and woven paper danish baskets (I made a tutorial about them here). That's it. We do have a paper advent chain next to the tree where we tear off one loop each day...but that's it for the decor this year. Keepin it simple. ☺


Even though I can't really show them to you, I do want to share about a tradition we have for ornaments (I mentioned it in my traditions post)
1--each member of the family has a personalized ornament. Those of you who know me know that I have lost three babies to miscarriage--I have an angel ornament for each of them. All our ornaments are different--mine I have had since childhood, Hubby's is a little viking, Wolf has an angel with his birthstone on it, Bear has (what else) a bear! We also have a crystal heart with "our first christmas" that we were given as a wedding gift--our wedding was a mere 5 days before Christmas, so that worked out well. ☺
2--I am slowly collecting one ornament from each country where our ancestors are from. (I have been buying one each year.) To date I have:
  • a wooden version of the woven heart baskets (Denmark)
  • a straw goat (Sweden or Finland)
  • a viking (Norway)
  • delicate curled wood-shaving stars (Germany)
  • a silver thistle snowflake (Scotland) (we got this just last year, so I actually have it here, and it is serving as our 'star' on top of the tree this year) ------>
I still need Finland/Sweden (whichever one I can find, then the goat will be for the other LOL!), Poland, France, and England...

16 comments:

HisFireFly said...

Flat tree, homemade ornaments and all, it looks like Christmas!!

Thanks for sharing.

dawn said...

awwww. so meager. Reminds me of the real Christmas. See my blog. He had a very meager birth. You are blessed!

James 1:9 (New International Version)

9The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position.

Dawn

Anonymous said...

I think your tree is very charming. It's very pioneer!

I haven't even wrapped our presents yet, because I'm afraid of the 1 yr old I babysit...very, very afraid. :P

Anonymous said...

I love your tree! And I'm really in love with that thistle ornament. We have too many ornaments at our house. VERY popular teacher gift. I could decorate a tree entirely in apples and music ornaments. :) My favorite are the home made ones though.

Joanne Sher said...

I love what you've done with what you have. It definitely feels "homey." Thanks for sharing!

Jenni said...

I didnt' mean to give the impression that I'm depressed about our flat little tree--it wasn't quite what I'd dreamed of having, but I'm happy with it. Actually, there's something very wholesome and happy about a wholly-homemade tree!

Mallory said...

How adorable! I love the idea of having ornaments from the countries where your family originated. That is so neat, and a fun way to teach the little ones about family history! That snowflake ornament is absolutely GORGEOUS!!

Unknown said...

Merry Christmas, Momma Bee! The first Christmas after my divorce, my parents bought me a 6 1/2 foot live tree that had to have a foot cut off cause it would not fit in my house. (Long Story).

My children and I made construction paper stars and painted them with glitter, hung them with yarn and I made a decoupage star tree topper out of fabric and cardboard. That is one of my favorite all time trees. I love it.

I put all my Christmas cards that I received that year on the tree as well.

It was quite pleasant. I love the hearts - they are beautiful.

Blessings.

Sheila said...

I love it!!! better than charlie brown with the flat tree :) Perfect!!! I think your house is my kinda christmas!

Sheila

Patty Wysong said...

I love your flat tree! Growing-up in Ecuador, many people used nets to hang ornaments on because Christmas trees were very hard to come by!

Kathy Schwanke said...

I love your tree! How charming! I also like the idea of collecting ornaments from your nationalities. I'll have to think about that...
Merry Christmas!

paintergal said...

Wow! What great memories you are creating with the homemade decorations and the hunt of the tree. Looks so festive!

erika~ the inspired mama said...

i love the idea of collecting an ornament from each country of ancestory! that is so neat!! i may have to borrow that ;)

i tagged you with a fun little meme~ check it out:
http://inspiredmamamusings.blogspot.com/2008/12/tweet.html

xo,
erika

Virginia Janet said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Hey! What temp did you dehydrate the oranges on? I ended up with a plethora of oranges and love the idea of making them into ornaments. :)

Jenni said...

If I had a dehydrator I would have done the oranges in that...but I didn't, so I laid them out on a cookie sheet and did them on something low...around 200 I think? I just checked them every 15 min or so.
If you slice them thin they will curl, if you slice thicker they'll stay flat.
I sprinkled with cloves or nutmeg or cinnamon before dehydrating, but that's optional. :)

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