Thursday, January 19, 2017

back to christmas...

long story...
after closing on this house on december 18th, 1995, we had three days to move from my Dream Home into a pint-sized fixer upper...
yeah...
the week before Christmas...
it was not a Good Time and i was not in a Good Place...
on the 23rd, i came "home" from working the night shift and found that Michael Myson and Melissa had put up an old artificial Christmas tree that was already broken before it was dropped off a friend's pickup truck ... Mikey had run wires from the tree to a nail in the wall to keep the tree upright, and the two of them decorated as far up as they could reach
 with whatever they could find...
it was touching and endearing and beautiful...
yes, it was...
but... 
instead of feeling blessed by the Spirit of Christmas in my youngest children's eyes, i  was overwhelmed with Sadness and Loss...
and after they left to spend Christmas Eve with the eXMan and his family... 
Guilt came to live here...

the next year, i bought a new tree...
a slim (skinny) blue spruce
we set it up in the living room and decorated with homemade ornaments that Michael and Melissa made with raw hide and pony beads and conchas 
and some pink berry picks that i found on sale...
i didn't have a tree skirt, so i spread woven place mats under it and i thought it was beautiful...
and it was all ours...

after a few years, that skinny blue spruce was losing more needles than it was keeping...
and its wire branches were not up to holding ornaments
or even lights...
and all of my kids started calling it Mom's Charlie Brown Tree...
so i let myself be shamed into buying a big fat tree - Melissa's tree - and it is beautiful, too...
she decorates it with red and white ornaments
 and cranberry bead garlands and popcorn garlands...
it is a proper Christmas tree
 and it always looks awesome...

but i missed my skinny little spruce...
i had collected a lot of southwestern-themed ornaments and garlands
and even a birch wood tree topper...
but still no tree skirt...
so i decided that i would put up MY tree in my bedroom
 AFTER i made a tree skirt for it...

fast forward five or ten years...

short...

last year, in july, i paper-pieced four spirit guide animals based on Quilted Legends of the West by Judy Zehner and Kim Mosher...
 joined them into a big square...
not looking like much...
and sent it off to Liz Bowman to do her quilting magic...
ooooo!!! dream catchers!!
i dunno how Liz always manages to make my mediocre piecing look so incredibly awesome...
anywho...
 i trimmed off the corners (thanks to my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Walsh, who taught me how to make a compass with a string and a pencil)...
 crossed my fingers...
 cut a slit and center hole...
 and bound it with bias binding (thanks to The Net and all its continuos bias binding tutorials)...
maybe THIS should be the right side

and brought my sad, skinny little blue spruce tree in from the cold...
coulda done a better job with those ornaments ... there's always next year
gonna hafta move that into the corner so i don't run into it
gonna need some PRESENTS to put under there!!!
purty, innit?!?
the tree needed some company
so i dug out the little Nativity...
sweet Baby Jesus
and celebrated with my skinny little blue spruce tree till the day after Christmas...

and now i've decided that i need another tree for my space ornaments... 

and that tree is gonna need a tree skirt...
don't worry - it's just a phase

cuz we don't need no stinkin' bare-bottomed trees...


i am linking up with Mama Spark's WIPS with Friends


Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.
George S. Patton

5 comments:

  1. I like your skinny tree. You need to use LARGER type for us old folks. I had a hard time reading your text!! Can't wait to see the new tree skirt!

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  2. I love your skinny tree and its new skirt and its ornaments! It has a story, it's part of your life, and that's why it is so special. I reckon you are still bouncing toward the stars too.....that's a wonderful quote.

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  3. Love your spirit animals and especially the project you made with them! I made a tree skirt years ago for my oldest daughter but she'd like it to be bigger. I have it now - in January - which should give her hope that she'll have the new enlarged version by early December....Wish me luck. The first order of business will be to remove the binding ....and then get very creative....

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  4. That's a sad story but I hope now it's turned into a happy one.

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  5. Love your tree that is just for you !!! I think it is wonderful to do for ourselves. and yes, you might need to increase the font size on your posts. It is a bit small. take care from Iowa

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