Monday, December 13, 2010

New Ornaments

Echidna Ornament
Have you a jolly echidna on your tree?
When my parents were in Australia last month, I asked them to bring me two things: Christmas ornaments and tea towels. They delivered.  We have this sledding monotreme up here, and also this pretty star.

Sydney Ornament

Grove Park Inn ornament
Matt gave me this one on my birthday.
Stockings

One day I will have a tree that is decorated in one of those elegant, monochromatic color schemes, like you see in magazines.  Maybe celery green glass balls with white accents.  But today is not that day.  Hodgepodge is the only scheme we know how to pull off.  That's a scheme, right?

O Christmas Tree

Speaking of hodge and podge, the fat Santas are on duty.

Fat Santas

They're the first thing you see when you walk into the house. ELEGANT.

Have you finished decking your halls?

24 comments:

Elizabeth said...

I am so not into elegant and would much rather mock those who have themed Christmases. Now your house looks fantastic.

Anonymous said...

Great tree! You reminded me I want to go to the Grove Park Inn! I was in a bad mood when we bought our tree and as a result we have a total charlie brown/linus pathetic tree.

Jenni said...

The tree is gorgeous! We're hodge podge over here too. More character. Those ornaments from Australia are great.

Kelly said...

I love it! I don't think you can do a tree like in the catalogs until your kids are grown up anyway ;)

Amy said...

Girl, my halls have been decked since December 1st. Totally atypical of me.

Wait, wasn't that echidna from ME? Is mom taking all the credit? So like her. Btw, I went back to try and get more of those and they're gone. Sad face.

Gorgeous tree!! So talk and stately looking.

Becky said...

No, whoops, you're totally right Amy! She did say the echidna was from you! And we have the little kookaburra and the wombat up there too. Laura loved those. I was just lumping them in with all the stuff Mom brought.

delaine said...

Your tree is gorgeous! I love the overall look you have going on. That's a neat ornament from the Grove Park Inn. Very thoughtful of Matt.

Amy said...

Kidding. I'm not that petty, well not most of the time.

Star said...

Lovely tree. Lovely house. Lovely memories in the making (and sharing), thanks!

gretchen said...

The tree is gorgeous. Not a hodge podge at all, but filled with lovingly collected family heirlooms. That's what I say about mine. Those monochromatic designer trees are cold and thoughtless. Ugh.

Veronica said...

Much better than a monochromatic tree!

Anonymous said...

Love that echidna. I am going right out tomorrow to try and score one. Love that magestic tree too.

Michele R said...

Love your ornaments. The other trees may look good in magazines but hard to picture a kid getting excited over decorating with mono ornaments. What you have is real.

Megan said...

The tree is fab, as are the fat Santas. And you and your tea towels! Seriously, because of you, every female in my family is getting tea towels to frame, hang or lay out (table runner) for Christmas this year. I'd never heard of them before. See what an impact you've made???

M said...

Just beautiful! Don't sweat not having the color-coordinated themed tree. The artificial tree we had when I was growing up was so ridiculously perfectly decorated that it could have come out of a department store window. All it did is make me want a real tree with every different kind of ornament imaginable. So guess what we've had for 30 years??? We even have red and green paper chains from days of yore. ;)

Merry Mary

Common Household Mom said...

I like your monotrematic look much more than a monochromatic look. The skating echidna is awesome.

The only decoration we have is a paper chain. That's as festive as it gets around here. To make up for that, we have lots of Advent/Christmas music going on.

Keely said...

When I was a kid our tree was full of meaningful mementos. Now I feel like we have none, but how do you go about collecting them if nobody will buy you any? Selfish a-holes.

Just me and the dog said...

I love your colorful christmas tree!

Just me and the dog said...

I love your colorful christmas tree!

Camp Papa said...

"Monotrematic look", gosh, I whish I had said that!

Camp Papa said...

Whish" is my holiday spelling of wish.

Anonymous said...

I'll try to keep this brief and just say: A) your tree is lovely!! B) my favorite ornaments every year are the quirky ones with a story and C) I got all excited about your Grove Park Inn ornament like I'm the only other person that's ever been there, but really it's because my brother manages the Great Hall Bar there (I'm an Asheville native). So maybe my sweet big bro served you a cocktail one time, and we can all say yay for that! Merry Christmas!

Becky said...

Monotrematic is great. As is special holiday spelling.

Megan! If an appreciation for tea towels are the light I bring into the world, I'm okay with that!

Amelia, that's so cool! I did indeed have cocktails in the great hall. And what a great brother to have. I'm totally throwing your name around the next time I go there.

Elizabeth-FlourishinProgress said...

Hodge Podge is So "the thing." It never goes out of style and it's a style that always makes me smile.

I love the matchy matchy look, but love to go into a home that has ornaments from years of scouting and trips and memories. Very cool.