Family History in Christmas Decorations

[Top-of-the-hill]

  I now have vague memories of clip on candle holders, so maybe we had a fir branch liberated from the woods!
   Not a decoration, but a Christmas book; I have a rather battered early edition of Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer. It is in verse, and begins "T'was the night before Christmas and all through the hills...." and is loosely based on the old poem "A visit from St Nicholas" I can still recite the names of the eight reindeer!

[IgorStrav]

We have Christmas Decorations from our own family, saved over the years, including a little cross-stitch decorated hanging santa created by my daughter at primary school.

I sadly discarded some lights donated to me by my dad which had finally given up the ghost after what must have been 30 or 40 years.

He used to decorate a large tree in our house when I was little and I can still remember him moaning about it - those were the days when you had to unscrew each light bulb to find out which one was the dud.

I also remember that horrid crepe paper you had to twist into long decorations to hang from the ceiling which I never liked - looked a bit feeble, I thought.

And that has taken me back to a long time ago, going upstairs to my grandma and auntie's sitting room (they lived upstairs in our house) which was decorated with these horrible crepe dangling things and trying - for the first time - their preferred drink which was Gin and Orange.  Gin and Orange Squash.  Eeeeeeeeeeeurgh.

Sorry for lowering the tone in that last bit. 

[Top-of-the-hill]

  I may now lower it a bit more.
     My granddaughter has recently unearthed a copy of "The meaning of Liff". If you don't know it, real placenames are given definitions of everyday events which have no name. Sometimes very funny and one I have always remembered is;- Chenies - The last few tassels of last year's Christmas decorations that you notice on the ceiling while lying on the sofa on an August afternoon.

[IgorStrav]

  I may now lower it a bit more.
     My granddaughter has recently unearthed a copy of "The meaning of Liff". If you don't know it, real placenames are given definitions of everyday events which have no name. Sometimes very funny and one I have always remembered is;- Chenies - The last few tassels of last year's Christmas decorations that you notice on the ceiling while lying on the sofa on an August afternoon.

 

[ThrelfallYorky]

I inherited delicate glass decorations dating back to the late 1800s, and have even managed to stabilise them so that they're reasonably safe to hang. To these were added my grandmothers, again delicate glass silvered "fruits" and bead garlands, my parents' decorations, a very few from my OH's parents, and the ones we have built up together. It really has built up into a "family tree" We tend to buy one or two new ones each year, many coming on annual visits to Venice, but sadly this year we'll not be buying a tree, as I'm currently far from well, and last year our very elderly tree lights (I know what you mean, IgorStrav) gave up the ghost, and I simply couldn't find any that didn't flash, twinkle, burp etc, but just plugged in and shone ( I was told they need transformers etc nowadays, as well).
I usually wired the tow of the tree, below the fragile, 60 year old glass star, to a beam in the conservatory, to avoid any chance of the cats ever bringing it down, and I've always put a few larger cheap but shiny plastic baubles on the lowest branches, the cats seem to bash and tap at them, before losing interest - so far.
I'm afraid that all I'm likely to manage this year is my old candle bridge over the fireplace. A pity, but it's just not practical at present.
TY

[IgorStrav]

How wonderful to have decorations from the 19th Century TY - very envious.

My Christmas mystery this year is that I got all the decorations out of the boxes, which had been packed by me after Christmas in the early days of 2021, particularly carefully because I have been moving house.

Arrived in Sheffield, Christmas decs boxes clearly labelled and delivered by movers/storers.
Got them all out of the garage and started the festooning - can't do here all the arrangements I used to do in my old house where I had lots of radiator cover tops and other surfaces.

Anyhow, much to my mystification, amongst all the decs I remember from many many years of use, there was an illuminated shark.

It hangs by a piece of string from its tail, and is made of heavy card (two colours) with a small LED light string wrapped round it and an on/off switch.

None of the children recognise it at all, none of them made it, I've never seen it before and last Christmas there were very few of us anyway so it can't have crept (swum?) in then.

So there you go.  I'm totally mystified.

It's on the tree though I can't say it really fits my "theme" 

[Lisajb]

I still have a little glass Eskimo that I remember buying with my mum in Woolworths.

Sadly, when I got him out of the box this year, he was far too fragile to go on the tree this year - the glass is so delicate and it is slowly crumbling away at the part where the metal hanger attaches.

At the same time we bought a little silver trumpet, that broke a few years back when I dropped it.

I treasure a red crescent moon with sequins that my son made in junior school, and a Santa he brought back from a school trip to Germany. For some strange reason I have nothing on the tree that my daughter made, but she has promised to rectify that this year.

[ThrelfallYorky]

I managed to stabilise and restore some crumbling glass with judicious spots of watch cement - superglue is similar. But be sparing with it.
TY