Tomorrow we are going to get our Christmas tree. In preparation for that, yesterday I was sorting through boxes and tins full of decorations and ornaments. We have a lot of old Christmas decorations at our house – tree ornaments and room decorations. Some of them go all the way back into my childhood. We have a plastic holly garland and a few tree ornaments from when I was little that have traveled all the way across the country and back again – from Pennsylvania to Ohio to Illinois to California and back to Pennsylvania – and survived more than five decades of Christmases. We also have a string of gold glass beads that Stacey kept from her childhood Christmas trees. Many of our decorations were made by my children – ornaments made from spray-painted pasta, jar lids, and clothes pins. Over the years we’ve added new decorations to the old until we’ve reached the point where we can’t use them all. We’d have to put up several Christmas trees and add a few more rooms to the house to hold all the decorations we’ve accumulated. But we can’t bear to part with any of them. Each one has a story and a memory associated with it. You don’t just throw away memories.
Of all the decorations we put up at Christmas, among the most beloved are our Nativity sets. We have a lot of them. The biggest and newest of them came from a family whose house we stayed at when we were visiting in Missouri just after Christmas in 2010 for John and Delaina’s wedding. The family, the Mahala’s, still had their house decorated and they had a large Nativity displayed on a table. Stacey admired it and said it reminded her of the beautiful Nativity grottos she saw while she was on her mission in Italy. The next summer we had a family reunion here and when John and Delaina showed up, they had that Nativity with them. The Mahalas had moved and decided to give the Nativity to us rather than take it with them. Every year we set it up on top of the low bookcase in the music room.
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| Our biggest Nativity. |
Our oldest Nativity is not one we usually set up anymore. Back in 1984 my sister Hollie made a set of ceramic Nativity figures to give to our parents as a Christmas gift. The pieces were only fired to the bisque stage and I was supposed to glaze them so she could have them fired again. I didn’t get around to it in time for glazing, so I decided to hand paint them instead. I think I finished painting them on Christmas Eve. We gave them to our parents and for years they were displayed on a table in their home at Christmastime. Over the years many of the pieces were damaged – a hand off here, a head there, lots of chips and cracks. When my parents moved, they gave the set to me. The pieces are big and there isn’t a good place to display them in our house. The set has sat out in a box in the woodshed for years. This year we decided to change that and we made a place for it in the music room. We will set it up every Christmas from now on.
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| Our oldest Nativity. |
Every year we set up a Nativity on top of the corner cupboard in the living room. My sister Nancy gave it to us back in 1990 in a family gift exchange. My brother-in-law Jim made a wooden stable for it. It’s a very pretty set. It too has seen some damage over the years. One year I dropped the angel and broke off its wings. At some point Mary’s hand broke off and, despite many attempts at repair, refuses to stay attached for long. One of the wise men was decapitated. We repaired him, but his head is slightly askew. The shepherd boy also lost a hand – really lost it. We can’t find it.
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| The top of the cupboard Nativity. |
Then there is a white ceramic Nativity that we always put in the downstairs bathroom – I don’t know why. On top of the small bookcase in the living room, we display our small Nativity sets. There are two little ceramic sets – I don’t remember where they came from. There is a tiny set carved from olive wood from Jerusalem. There are several other odd sets. One of our favorites is a very tiny plastic set that was a gift from a friend who hid the pieces, each wrapped in foil, inside a cake. Another of our favorites is a little plastic set Hannah hand-painted a long time ago. For some reason odd additions keep turning up on this set – a tiny horse, a boy playing a tuba, a little nutcracker, and Harry Potter have all come to adore the baby Jesus. We love our Nativity sets. Amid all the glitter, holly, pine, and lights, they remind us of the true reason for this festive season.
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| The bathroom Nativity. |
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| The top of the bookcase. |
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| The tiny cake Nativity. |
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| Hannah's Nativity with odd additions. |
We had some substantial snow last week. There’s about five inches of it on the ground now and more expected. This coming week we’re supposed to get some pretty cold weather. Our firewood supply on the front porch was almost gone and we were procrastinating trudging out to the woodpile in the snow to restock it. On Saturday while we were out running errands, Stacey and I stopped at an Amish farm up in Shongo, New York, and bought a cord of firewood. We were driving the Shillig’s Yukon, so we just loaded it in the back and brought it home and stacked it on the front porch. Now I feel prepared for whatever weather comes.
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| A new cord of wood on the front porch. |
We’re home from church. The drive to and from Wellsville wasn’t too bad, but I’m glad we’re in for the day and don’t have to go out again. Well, I do have to go down to the barn to do chores soon and we are going over to the Shillig’s house this evening, but that just means short walks in the snow – no slippery roads. I think the snow is pretty. I love how it covers up everything and makes the world look clean. The snow always seems prettiest when I only have to look at it from inside a warm house.
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| What it looks like right now. |
