Living Beauty Full in the Burbs
Living Beauty Full in the Burbs
So sorry I’ve been MIA. Food poisoning. ’nuff said. But I’m back, so here’s the latest in the Christmas posts for this year. If…
So sorry I’ve been MIA. Food poisoning. ’nuff said. But I’m back, so here’s the latest in the Christmas posts for this year. If you have ornies (that’s ornaments for the unenlightened) that have seen better days, here is an easy way to update them. This works on older glass (not plastic) ornaments, those made prior to 2005. (I just picked that date arbitrarily.) I’ll get to that point in a minute. But, yes, this is easy, peasy. Remove the tops and wash them with hot soapy water! Who knew?? Well, now YOU do. Hold your ornies by the stem UPSIDE DOWN under hottish water (as hot as you can stand). I usually squirt a bit of dishwashing soap on them (sometimes I don’t even do that). Rub gently and the old paint should slide right off. You may have to use your thumb nail on stubborn spots but really it’s that simple. If you find that the ornies are slipping from your fingers and smashing to smithereens in the sink, try wearing latex gloves. WARNING: Do not get water inside the ornament. It will remove the “silvering” from the inside and you’ll be left with dingy clear ornies, not exactly the “updated” look you’ll love. After washing just dry with a soft cloth and put the top back on. You’ll be left with silver ornies that have little speckles of the old paint or even better, with some areas of discoloration that lend that old mercury glass look. Of course the ones pictured here in the “after” shot don’t have those discolorations. sigh. But the next batch probably will. After this post is published.
If you don’t like the look of the hanger top, you can paint it by dabbing gray or brown craft paint on it to age it. I usually don’t bother with it, but some may find it more appealing to age the top as well. That’s it. Now back to that arbitrary date. I’ve found that ornaments made within the last 5 or 6 years may scratch a bit but the finish will.not.wash.off. For those, back when I needed silver ornaments and was really determined, I used acetone or once even paint stripper. But those products are stinky and the process is messy. So I don’t. Because really, I’m lazy and I don’t like stinky. Plus I don’t want to wear a mask and rubber gloves just to update an ornament. I send those to Goodwill cause you know, they don’t fit my “look” anymore and there are lots of people who don’t care about a few scratches. They use them in other ways, like those wreaths with a bazillian old ornies glued on. Just turn the scratchy part to the back. I now own boxes of updated “old” silver ornaments. I may never have to buy new ones again.
I’m a big fan of using what I have, don’t get me wrong, I’ll buy if I really want something, but Christmas is a wonderful time to incorporate old things, things that may not exactly “go” with my current style, or things that in another life were garish (and probably still are), but who really cares?? It’s Christmas! And so it was with Mr B’s star tree topper. It cost a whopping 53¢ in its day, in the 1970’s. He remembers it as being the first ornament he picked out on his own and purchased. That first year of dating bliss, our first Christmas together was spent visiting one another’s homes and honestly the only stars I saw that year were the ones he put in my eyes. I never noticed the 53¢ tree topper.
I DID notice it the second Christmas, the year we moved in together and began blending our things (read, I packed up most of his hideous decor as soon as my boxes were unpacked. (I had empty boxes…..I mean, come on…..couldn’t waste those, right???) I set about the task of making his home, our home. Christmas came and we began decorating the house. Out came our boxes of Christmas ornaments. The lights went on the tree and we had fun hanging all our different ornies, laughing at some of our crazy old ones. And then it was time for the topper and he pulled that star out of its shabby package, the original package I might add, with the price clearly marked. My beloved Christmas angel, the one that belonged to my Grams and featured in a previous post, was in danger once again of being replaced by something modern. CHEEZITS! No way. Nuh uh, not ever again. So we compromised. He still had children who lived with him ( and eventually became mine as well) and it was important to continue their traditions in a time of change. So I put my angel on a small tree decorated with my family memories and we proudly installed Mr B’s star (OK, one of us was proud, the other not so much, I’ll leave it up to you to decide who was, and who wasn’t in the proud corner). I disliked that star immensely. I decided immediately it was tacky. But I was in a new relationship and had already packed up lots of his things so I didn’t rock the Christmas boat. I swore an oath that the next Christmas my angel was goin up on the big tree. Yep. No doubt.
Well, the next year and the year after that and maybe even the following year that stupid star graced the top of our main tree. Along with colored lights. ugh. Because our daughter loved them. Yes, she officially became my daughter too, after a holiday wedding, and I also gained a second son. WOOT! But I adored white lights. So we compromised again. And went with colored lights. (Clearly I hadn’t mastered the art of the compromise thing.) It was OK though. More than OK, we were a family. It was Christmas. The tree looked beautiful, albeit with colored lights and that 53¢ star. We kept the colored lights until the daughter graduated high school and went off to college. Numbers 1 and 2 sons were out on their own. I finally got my tree with white lights and when it came time to put the topper on the first year as empty nesters, Mr B stood quietly beside our glorious tree with the star in his hand. And something happened. I suddenly didn’t hate that star. I actually liked it….. in all its tacky glory. So up on the top it went. And that star remained as the topper for all the years our “big” tree stood in the family room. My angel? She adorned a smaller tree in the living room, the first room you see when you enter our home. All was well in the Brown home. Harmony and Peace.
Harmony and Peace still reign in our home. The angel tops the main tree in our tiny living room. The family room is now home to a small tree, purchased to showcase the Hallmark ornaments I’ve collected for years. There are none on the tree. Because… well……that’s a story for another time. But the 53¢ star? It’s on that little tree, loud and proud. It doesn’t really fit. It sits way up on top and that tip is too thick to cut. So just under it is the ribbon from my wedding bouquet to hide the bare spot. I love that star. It isn’t Christmas without it. It’s a glorious star. 53¢ well spent if you ask me. No more compromise. I’m firmly in the proud corner with Mr B.
Some of you have been with me since the beginning of this blog journey. And a few of you have requested the reprint of the Christmas Stocking again this year. Thank you for that. So for my old friends who have read it, enjoyed it and want to read it again, and the new ones who have not read this story, welcome. And thank you from the bottom of my heart for your support. Christmas stories seem to resonate with everyone, tales of joy and hope, stories of fun and disaster, of love and tradition, of love found, and love lost. I hope this one resonates with you.
Every family has traditions. Things that are done the same way, year after year. Things that are counted on. Traditions provide a foundation and a feeling of coming home. Of safety. And happiness. Of continuity. Maybe it’s the way the mantel is decorated. Or the ornaments remain the same each year. Or it’s the cookies that Grandma always made, still being made long after Grandma is gone. Or perhaps it’s lasagna for Christmas dinner. But what if a Tradition doesn’t “fit” anymore? Becomes too expensive, too “big” or too difficult? Is it OK to change a tradition?
In my case, our tradition was Christmas Stockings. I was a single mother. I didn’t always have enough money to buy a tree. I sometimes put red ribbon bows and candy canes on a Ficus and called it “Our Charley Brown” tree. But the one thing I had without fail was Christmas stockings. Mine rarely had anything in it. It was more for show. But I always made sure my son’s was stuffed with fun things. Matchbox cars when he was young. Bubbles. New crayons. And a new ornament. (which remains a tradition). As I’m sure all kids do, he begged to open his gifts on Christmas Eve. He was filled with excitement, his eyes big at the sight of boxes wrapped and piled under the tree. He almost vibrated with expectation. I had a rule, no gift opening til Christmas morning. Despite the groans and moans and the, “Please, Mommie?” I stuck to that rule. Except. (You knew there was going to be an “except”, didn’t you??) OK, ONE gift on Christmas Eve and we’d get our Christmas stockings to see what was in them. He was well past the age of believing in Santa so there was no fake story about the fat one coming early. Those stockings became our “thing.” I put a lot of time and energy and money in being creative as he got older. The gifts became more elaborate and more expensive. Gift cards to favorite restaurants or to the zoo or some outing to do together. Always a new ornament. And candy. And then the teen years hit. So there was after shave and young man things. I think he loved digging in the stocking more than anything else about Christmas.
Enter a marriage and instant siblings. The stocking tradition continued well into adulthood. I was rapidly spending the bulk of our Christmas budget stuffing those stockings. So one year, I decided to go another route. This was the year the whole family was going to be together. All the siblings. My husband was home (He frequently traveled on holidays), the Grandchildren were here. It was a perfect time to introduce a new tradition. I made gift bags. BAGS. I thought I was being clever. I could put larger gifts inside, the bags held more. Brilliant. Not so fast, Christmas Mom.
My son walked into the family room and saw no stockings hung by the chimney with care. In fact there were no stockings to be seen! He promptly grabbed my attention by quietly bellowing, “WHERE ARE THE STOCKINGS????” “WE DON’T HAVE STOCKINGS??” I saw him looking frantically around the room, searching for his stocking. By this time, the rest of the group became restless and I could hear murmurings……“Did Mom forget the stockings?” “Is Mom OK?” “What’s going on?” You know, concerned that I’d had some sort of mental lapse. Which, as it turns out I did. What was I thinking? I explained that this year I didn’t do stockings, I did gift bags!!! Woot! There were no return Woots. My son, drew himself up to his full height, and announced to no one in particular, “This is unacceptable. UNACCEPTABLE”. (In case I didn’t hear him the first time.) “What do you mean, gift bags?? GIFT BAGS??“ And he stomped off. OK, maybe not stomped exactly. But very firmly put one very large foot in front of the other and left the room. Dead silence. I stood for a few seconds, in a mental hamster-on-a-wheel moment, searching my brain for a solution to this calamity. Did I have time to get the stockings from the attic, stuff them, bring them out later, and yell, “SURPRISE! ONLY KIDDING, HERE ARE YOUR STUPID STOCKINGS!” Nope, not happening.
I honestly didn’t consider his reaction. I should have known. We’d moved around quite a bit when he was young and he hung on to things that were familiar. I suddenly realized the stocking meant more than just stuff for fun, it was one of his few remaining touchstones, a symbol that while everything else in his life had changed, this one thing, his Christmas stocking remained. We went on with Christmas that day, it was filled with fun and great food, music, the kids tussling, me yelling, “Take it outside!” and “Don’t slam the door!” The Grandkids overwhelmed with gifts and too many cookies, protesting the taking of pictures, hanging out with their beloved Aunts and Uncles and the rest of us.
It was a great, big, typical, noisy, messy holiday. And I loved it. I was the subject of affectionate scorn from every.single.member.of.my.family. In good fun, and it would become another family joke, told the next year and the year after that. My son, that sweet, goofy, big-hearted prankster, never let me forget. He continued to shoot me the stink eye all day, (accompanied by his grin, but the stink eye nonetheless), and I could hear him muttering in my direction all weekend long. I couldn’t hear all of it, but I caught enough of, “Unacceptable, and “For petes sake” and there was the odd eye roll. (Learned from his Bonus Dad). Whatever. I got it. I got it already! Stockings were hung by the chimney with care every year after that. Stuffed to the tops, overflowing. Bonus. There were also gift bags for the things that were too large for the stockings.
My son was killed in an accident three years after that Christmas. I don’t do stockings anymore. Except his. His stocking is hung every year. His last, and favorite Hallmark ornament, a Mustang, hangs from it. A little stuffed reindeer we got from McDonalds during his teen years is in it. It now hangs on the door to the room he stayed in whenever he came home. That stocking means more now than ever. It doesn’t hold gifts anymore, it holds memories. Years of memories. It is overflowing.
I suffer from horrible MCPD, and each year it’s gotten a bit worse. I fear it will become a permanent condition. You see, I have Multiple Personality Christmas Disorder. It’s real! and the struggle is on-going people! I try every holiday season to give my home a cohesive look. I’ve managed to do that over the years by repeating the same decor items in different amounts throughout my home. Pine cones, candy canes, stars and snowflakes. If it sounds like it was a bit chaotic, it really wasn’t. OK, do NOT ask Mr B for his opinion. Mine is the only one that counts anyway, so let’s just let him sit and watch golf in peace, Kay?
Using those few elements throughout the house helped join disparate ornaments, Santas of all kinds and all manner of Christmas. BUT, and this is where the problem lies…..I want to go simple and a bit rustic. I need to simplify. I crave Christmas simplicity. Except…… I also LOOOVE faux Mercury glass. I adore it the way some little girls adore pink.
I must have.it.everywhere. So there goes simple and natural. Nowhere in nature does mercury glass grow.
I’m fond of saying that Christmas style should be whatever strikes your fancy, there really isn’t a right or a wrong way to do Christmas. I truly believe that. But I also want a cohesive look to my home. How am I going to merge these two opposite styles? I want my home to feel cozy and warm and smell delightful. Should be simple, right? But it’s a struggle to find the balance between simple and bling. I’m all about that mercury glass bling at the moment.
It started with the purchase of two small battery operated glass trees several years ago. When I went full on neutral I wanted neutral Christmas as well, so I retired all the red, green and blue ornies, gave away lots more when I downsized the tree and started buying silver and gold ornies. (ornaments for those who hate slang). I even made my own faux vintage silver ornaments by removing the scratched finishes. Read about that here.
I became addicted to the faux mercury baubles showing up at Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware and I stalked the aisle of my local Home Goods and Marshalls and snapped up the shiny orbs after Christmas…before mercury glass ornaments became a big thing. Fast forward to 2017. Otherwise known as the The year of the shiny little tree. Those faux mercury glass trees started exploding on Instagram and I decided I wanted HAD.TO.HAVE.MORE. So I bought 6 more. Plus a big shiny orb that lights up. WHYYYYYY??? What is wrong with me??
I want rustic, natural and simple. I want to sprinkle my heartfelt displays throughout my home. Why does this shiny stuff call to me? GAH!!! There is nothing natural or rustic about glass trees with various silver linings. Nothing authentic either. How am I going to merge these two styles? I like putting things with totally different finishes in a room. It gives texture and movement and each piece stands out, yet plays nice with the other. The Beekman 1802 guys do this well. Opposites attract and all that. It’s one of the principles of good design. So adding a little mercury glass bling to a rustic centerpiece is good, but not when it just looks like a neurotic person designed it and the room can’t make up its mind what it wants to be when it grows up!
The dining room table is close to achieving the perfect marriage. I used my rustic piece of wood down the center as the base of my centerpiece again this year. Then I layered a cedar garland, my mercury glass hurricanes and the 2 original trees. A couple of pine cones and it’s looking good. But then…. I added two lucite reindeer, and some little ornaments. Um….getting a bit off track but the rustic wood and the cedar tie it together. And the window dressed in its annual garland and lucite snowflakes relate, so I’m good. Right? um, noooo. Because the rest of the room is pretty rustic. An old stained serving bowl with pine cones and silver leaf antlers. And then the woodland Santa on the sideboard. Now it looks like someone with MPCD came in and threw Christmas everywhere and nothing matches!!! BECAUSE I DID….I’M THE ONE WITH MPCD!!!
I need an intervention or a stylist. The world’s tiniest living room isn’t too bad. It has some of the glass trees and the little table top tree is groaning under the weight of 5,ooo faux mercury ornaments. (This may be a tiny exaggeration.) The entry portion of this space is more rustic but it doesn’t feel chaotic like the dining room.
On to the master bedroom where a few glass trees are grouped on the dresser along with some greenery and the a fore mentioned orb that lights up. Another glass tree and my Grandmother’s silver rimmed bowl full of special ornies on my nightstand complete the look. Not too bad, right? Except the feel of this room has recently made a return to a more rustic, country vibe and the glass trees look out of place. Or dooo they??? ugh. I’m all over the place.
Maybe I’m making too much of this. I expect that over the next couple of years I’ll scale back on Christmas even more. I may forego a tree altogether. It’s in the back of my mind. If you read my Christmas Tree post, you’ll understand my angst. If you didn’t, you can read that post here. I do know I’ll be doing something different with all those mercury glass ornaments.
I may even rearrange some things before Christmas. Since.I.can.never.leave.well.enough.alone. And apparently I’m bored since I just finished everything.
Siigggh. Is there a 12 step program for those of us with mercury glass addictions?? Or medication for MPCD to keep me from arranging, then rearranging every stinking room until it’s time to pack it up? Somebody help me.
UPDATE:
So, of course I couldn’t leave well enough alone and to make this post even longer, here’s what I did today. I removed one of the lucite deer from the dining table and added it to the coffee table arrangement. Lucite for the win! I removed the brass deer from Santa’s side and put him on the grain box in the entry. OKAAAY. Then I added mercury glass to the Santa arrangement…….and still hate it. Oh noooo. Santa’s time on the sideboard may be coming to an end. But I’m tired. This MPCD is exhausting. Think I’ll take a long winter’s nap. Wake me when Christmas is over.
While I nap, go ahead and create your Christmas sanctuary. Get as crazy as you like. You’ll be in good company.
I like using things that have meaning to me in my holiday displays. A heartfelt display can be anything that speaks to your heart. It doesn’t have to be valuable in the monetary sense, but rather invaluable in the personal/emotional sense. Things passed down over the years from family, a gift from someone special, even photographs. Anything that evokes emotion in you. Anything that can hold greenery or ornaments can be used as part of your Christmas decor.
I don’t like hitting Big Box stores to shop for Christmas as much anymore. Since I made the move to simplify my Christmas, I like shopping my house to see what I can incorporate into my holiday decor. I do enjoy going to friends’ homes to see what personal things they use. I won’t lie…. I LOVE Christmas, even the over the top “Big Box” bought extravaganzas. So whatever your holiday style, rock it like a Boss. But add some personal too, tell your history through heartfelt displays and vignettes.
A photo of my son with Santa, a card he “sent” his grandparents combine to make a sweet sentimental display on my vintage toy box that my son also used when he was a boy.
Some of my things are on display all year, others, like my Mom’s Christmas bell, is only out for Christmas, and my Grandmother’s Christmas cross stitched hand towel.
Mr B’s baby shoes get greenery and candy canes at Christmas, (is there anything that doesn’t look like Christmas with candy canes??) while my Grandmother’s Santa Elves hold some of Mr B’s golf balls from special courses he’s played. Those Elves look like they were made to hold those. Right?
Mr B’s baby shoes get all dressed up for the holidays
The snowman from my childhood days adorns the kitchen counter now. And my Grams’ little “elf on a pillow” and a box of ornament hooks I found in her cedar chest many years after she passed away. These are the Christmas things that are most precious to me. The things that have memories attached.
Many of the things I hold dear are my Grandmother’s. I miss her every day but most of all at Christmas. I use her dish with the sterling silver rim to hold ornaments, one of them being my son’s memorial ornament honoring his big heart. It’s precious to me and so is that bowl. That old bowl held everything from “Three Bean Salad” or potato salad in summer to mashed potatoes for Christmas dinner, and I remember it well. She always served whatever dish she’d labored over with a big sterling silver spoon. I don’t remember where she got it, but I can’t remember a holiday without it. It will probably never hold Three Bean Salad again, (and trust me, this is a good thing), but it does hold memories now as well as the seasonal decor I use. A bird’s nest and faux eggs for spring, shells in summer, pine cones in the fall and winter and of course, ornies at Christmas. You don’t have to use something “that’s just Christmas” to get the look and feel Of Christmas. So drag out those old bowls, the shoes and boots, family photos from holidays long ago, old Christmas post cards or greeting cards, or use last year’s. It doesn’t matter, just add heart to your Christmas and not so much “Big Box.”
In the kitchen is a vintage spoon holder that is now home to the teaspoons my sweet sister in law gifted to me. It gets treated to candy canes and greenery at Christmas. The vintage pretzel jar my son and I found while junking in Sisters, Oregon holds pine cones. I just noticed I forgot to remove the orphan ornament hooks before photographing. Ha, extra holiday cheer!
Look around your home. Find those things that tell a story of you and your life. Add them to your Christmas displays.
There is nothing better than your heart at Christmas.
Create your sanctuary one display at a time. Create the home you see in your heart.
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