Xmas decorations up - photo heavy post

I kind of didn't want to but after sleeping late, a lovely walk along the river into town, a stroll through the last day of the markets, a visit to my favourite spice shop and all in all a very nice morning and early afternoon, once I got home I just took the bags and boxes of decorations down from the cupboard they live in. I suspect if I hadn't taken them down, I might not have put them up at all. I've had years where I've decided to put nothing up and not minded but I had been looking forward to it so I thought it best to just go for it. As I have done since I moved here, I am just using the small artificial tree I bought for my first flat (in 1997) - when I moved to a bigger place a couple of years later we always got a real tree but most years this small one also got set up somewhere too. It has held up well for what it was, i.e. the cheapest one I could find - I think it cost 9.99 or something like that.

Anyway, I have ornaments for a larger tree so a lot ends up going back in the cupboard but for the last ten or more years I have tried to buy one really nice thing every year and I do like to have them out and remember where and when I bought them (even if my memory is no longer as good as it used to be and I wish I had kept a written record!). So the ones that don't fit on the tree or are too heavy, just get placed here and there, hanging from doorknobs and anywhere I can spy a good place.
 



I got this little guy during a visit to Germany in early December in about '98 or '99 (I think it was). That cute little face makes me smile every time.

I think I bought this tea-light holder the same year and it has 1999 stamped on it, so let's just say it was '99. At any rate it was the year I came to visit a friend who lives a couple of hours north of Dusseldorf, never dreaming I'd end up living here. I visited four or five different markets that year, including Essen and Münster - I bought several decorations that year as I kept finding even better and better ones. I also have a tiny white glass snowman and two angels, a blue and a red, from that year.

This one is from Sydney last year...

...as you can see from the reverse of it.

This penguin is too heavy for the tree so for now just has to chill out while propping up a candle,

while this reindeer is just hanging out on the writing desk

and Rudolph and Santy enjoy a nice bath after all their exertions. I got this one the year before last and it makes me laugh now as much as it did when I first saw it.








And finally, here's the two that I bought this year.

This one just this morning at the market - I couldn't resist. Even though I actually did resist while waiting to pay for something else and then dug into my purse again while paying. The photo isn't the best so you can't quite see it but as well as presents in the sack the boy is holding, there's a little puppy. So cute.

And this one is what I got at the Craft Fair earlier in the month. Made by the lovely Sarah McKenna, it's impressed ceramic. She had lovely stars and hearts, too, which were glazed and I did prefer the feel of them. However, I decided that since "home" is what I'm trying to create here this was more fitting.

So that's it. They're up now and will be staying up until the end of January - light and cheer and good memories throughout the darkest time of the year.