Remembering

When I was a little girl, my mom LOVED Christmas.  I have only the fondest memories of the transformation that would occur every December in our house.  Every inch of the house had something Christmas-y in it...the bathrooms, the bedrooms, the kitchen, the front door...Christmas was everywhere!  We always had two trees...a sentimental, "homey" tree in the living room, and a "themed" tree in the front window that could be seen from the street.  Every year there was a different theme.  One year there was a flocked tree (that's where they spray fake white "snow" on the live tree before you bring it home) decorated with only red ornaments; 

another year we had a tree with multi colored ornaments covered in silver tinsel (you know, those individual tinsels that you had to place ONE AT A TIME on each branch...ugh!); 

...and I seem to recall that we had a tree with all purple ornaments once, but that could just be my imagination because I happen to love purple...(maybe that was the tree I wished for???)  

(HA!  nope...I didn't imagine it...THOSE are PURPLE ORNAMENTS!)


As I got older, my mom started collecting Santas.  She was drawn to them...ornaments, wall hangings, cookie jars...she LOVED Santas.  She especially loved the old fashioned ones and she had a few that she would stand in various places in our house.  
In May, after my dad died, I hastily went through my parents' house gathering up all of the Christmas boxes to bring back with me...and if you think that was a small job, think again!  To say that her collection of Christmas decor was VAST would be a gross understatement.  But between our cross country relocation this summer and all of the many, many other distractions that occurred from May until now, I really didn't take a lot of time to look inside many of the boxes.  Yesterday, I opened two boxes with my dad's writing "THIS END UP" all over them and found two of her favorite Santas. 

I have never been drawn to Santas the way my mom was, but I love these two because she loved them. These are SO my mom...gold and white were her favorite colors.  They're classy and elegant like she was.  And so, I decided that they needed to have a place of honor in my house.  They started on the mantle, but they were lost with the white walls behind them.  So here's where they ended up...

in the dining room...next to the oriental wall hanging that belonged to her best friend, and the soup tureen collection from the grandmothers, and the dining room table which is currently set with her lead crystal plates.  Two is not an aesthetically pleasing number, so I went on a hunt yesterday for a third, and found one that was worthy of the other two.  

The three of them now make me exceedingly happy because it feels like a little of my mom is here with us...certainly her love of the Christmas season which we all share.