Deconstructing Christmas

The bane of Christmas decorations: 

Taking them down and storing them until next year.

It's one of those annual rites of the New Year. Remember how you get into the spirit of Christmas when you cheerfully deck your house inside and out with all those festive decorations?

Isn't it kind of ironic when it comes to taking it all down, I think of it as deconstructing Christmas, that the task seems to be rather laborious? It tends to become one of those chores that you are prone to put off until later, like say, tomorrow or the day after.

While performing this duty today, I came across a box of ornaments that we haven't used in quite some time. These were special and have sentimental value to us. I'd like to believe they are probably one of a kind.

I thought it would be a good idea to share the images of them. I scanned them and uploaded them to this post.

They were hung on our Christmas trees when my daughter, Gretchen, was younger and still lived with us. All of them were hand-made by myself. They are hand-drawn and hand-painted onto various shaped pieces of wood. You might recognize that the one to the left was fashioned from a wooden stirrer.

The 3 figures at the right were made from those wooden sticks used to stir a can of paint.

Quite a few of our Christmas trees over the years had no store-bought ornaments on the branches, instead they were decked out with these hand-made ones.

On several occasions Gretchen has taken a few of my pieces, her favorites, to her new home. I've been noticing that the contents of the box housing my collection has been dwindling in numbers over the years. That's okay, of course. I guess we should look at them as family heirlooms which are intended to be handed down.

Now that I'm retired, I'm thinking that I should return to my shop and start producing more of these items. I use to sell my wood crafts and did alright. For us retirees, extra spending money in the pocket never hurts.

№ 2081