You have until Midnight tonight to enter to win a gardening prize pack worth over $50. I'll be adding some of my photo note cards to the pack as well as some other goodies. Enter here.On Sunday, I finally got our tree up. We have a small pre-lit 4' tall artificial tree that I put on a round table. Sometimes I wish we had a real tree for the smell, but we have a cat, and I shudder to think what she might do if she got a hold of a real tree. She doesn't bother this one. She's not an outdoor cat, so maybe she wouldn't know what to do with it, but she goes nuts whenever their is an exotic smell in the house she has never smelled before. If we've come back from Gary's parent's farm and we've been in or near the barn, she will rub all over our legs like we are covered in catnip. It's the funniest thing. Here's a picture of Princess Jasmine, our beautiful girl.
Now, back to the tree. These pictures don't do it justice. I really think I should look for some beaded garland to put on it as I tend to stay away from tinsel. Growing up, our trees were so full of tinsel, you could barely see the ornaments...LOL. It was so pretty.
This photo is without the flash, obviously. As you can see, I prefer all white lights. Never liked colored lights on the tree, unless it was all blue.
When I first started out on my own, I used to have a themed tree each year. Basically because I was too broke to buy a lot of things, so that first year, the tree was all gold and red. It was very pretty. I had bought a bunch of gold musical notes and small red ribbons from the dollar store and used gold garland and red tinsel. For about $15-$20, I had a pretty awesome looking tree for a bachelorette.
Then over the years, I began collecting Hallmark ornaments, which I still do today. Anything bird or garden related is a must. I try and buy one cardinal, one mallard duck and one garden related ornament each year, no matter what brand it is. It's sort of my own little tradition. I hope to have enough bird ornaments to do a bird tree one year.
I also really love handmade ornaments and tried to start a tradition with my in-laws when Gary and I first got married. I would bake some goodies and give some handmade ornaments each Christmas, but the only person really into it was me. Oh, well. I still make ornaments once in a while, but I have gotten away from doing it every year.
I used to be really into collecting Wizard of Oz stuff, but lack of space has got me limited to ornaments. I don't buy them every year, like I used to. I have a miniature and large set of each of the main characters along with the sugar plum fairies and the Good Witch, which I just got earlier this year from an antique/collectible store. I don't know if Hallmark made any of the lollipop guild, but that would probably be next on my list and then I can stop. They may have also made one of the wicked witch, but I'm not sure.
I really love all the Fairy Messenger ornaments from Hallmark and have all but the first and second ones, which go for ungodly amounts of money on eBay these days. You'd think with the bad economy they'd go down a little bit...LOL.
There's a good mixture of store bought ornaments, handmade ornaments and ornaments passed down from my mother and grandmother on this tree. The newest handmade ornament is the one that looks like a strawberry (above/left). I made it from a gourd and had intended to sell it, but Gary like it so much, we kept it.
I used to collect Barbie dolls as well, but have limited that collection as well. Here are three of my only Barbie ornaments, from the Nutcracker Hallmark Collection.
And last for today, Gary loves the New York Jets football team, so we have a few ornaments for them as well. I think I counted four or five on the tree this year.
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