Our beloved old house is sort of an amalgam. From the front it is a vernacular Victorian with some Stick Style elements when it was built in 1869. But by the turn of that century it had been enlarged under a now Second Empire roof, really only noticed from the sides or back. At some point a big Italianate bay window was pasted onto the living room. That bay is where we erect our big ol' primary Christmas tree every year.
When we finally broke down and bought an artificial tree to fit the ten foot ceiling of the room, the tree it filled -- FILLED -- that bay window. It was difficult to get around the sides of the tree to decorate it or to reach the top of the tree without crushing the branches getting the ladder close enough. We were glad to retire that tree in favor of a much slimmer but equally tall tree. The big'n' decorates the upstairs front porch now.
We often have put up a seven-foot second tree in the den or, more recently, in the small bay window in our guest bedroom on the opposite side of the house. The seven-foot tree has been the more informal, comfortable, down home tree. Near the top of it, instead of a star we usually hang this crewel-work ornament crafted by Sheila from a kit. She bought two kits back in the seventies or eighties sometime. The other kit was a Santa --- or was it a Rocking Horse? It was never completed and was eventually donated to a charity resale shop, I think. This one WAS finally opened before Christmas one year. Several years later it was actually completed. At any rate, we like it and this happy little angel has adorned our second tree for many years now.
Do you have projects in progress packed away in a closet or spare room? I have several, so I can't give Sheila a hard time about this one. I think I'll write a separate post about my tiny little project that took a LONG time and a pandemic quarantine for me to finish. I put it in the mail to my granddaughters TODAY -- the very last day for scheduled delivery before Christmas!
No comments:
Post a Comment