IT'S MISTLETOE MONDAY - The Not Your Usual Suspects authors share their personal Holiday season decorations and delights with you.
Tell us about your favourite decorations and traditions at this time of year - we'd love to hear them!
Maureen's favorite decoration:
We used to have these blue lights for the Christmas tree. Two strands of them. And before we put them up on the tree my Dad would lay them out on the carpet in straight rows and I would pretend I was an airplane and land between them.
Maureen's favorite seasonal recipe:
My family makes Ukrainian food for Christmas. I confess that I am the only one in the family that doesn't like Ukrainian food, so my favorite Christmas recipe would be the 'special plate' of real food that Grandma slips me!
Maureen Miller
Sharon's favorite ornament:
Since my husband and I were married we give each other an ornament for Christmas. As our kids were born, we added them to the ornament giving tradition. Now, three kids and twenty-one years later we have trees (yes, plural) full of special ornaments. Every year we break out the boxes and as we hang them on the tree we reminisce and remember good times. Each ornament represents what our children were involved in that particular year. So I don't have one ornament but rather boxes and boxes of ornaments that represent our family. Its something I will cherish forever and someday my kids will get to take their ornaments with them to decorate their own trees.Sharon Cullen
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Marcelle's favourite decorations: Rosemary and Owl
Marcelle Dube
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Blinded by Our Eyes by Clare London
Dead Silent - Shirley Wells
20 comments:
My family has some very old decorations, including fairy lights that are older than me!
Maureen -- Can you give an example of "Ukrainian food"?
Sharon -- I love your ornament tradition. It sounds like the unboxing must be a fun trip down memory lane.
Ukrainian food, Maureen? Do tell more.
I love the ornament tradition, Sharon. It sounds like great fun!
Kapusta soup. blech! Cabbage soup. Kluskies. Pitohis. Dough, cabbage, dough. More cabbage and more dough.
And yet, I love Christmas Eve dinner, just because it's tradition. :)
Marcelle, I love the owl! Sharon, I love your ornament tradition as well!
Funny how we all remember the small little things and they seem so special to us as time goes by. Even if it's the yucky Ukrainian food! Grin. This is why I tell everybody to chill out for the holiday and enjoy.
This is the sort of post I love the best - seeing what other people love on display :). I've got some of my own to share later in the month :).
Something I did one year was to set up another small tree in the dining room, then I asked my online friends to send me a small pic of themselves, or their online icon, or just a picture they liked. Then I made them into small labels and hung them from the tree. It was lovely to look at it each day and "touch base" with friends far away :).
Maureen--Ukrainian huh? That's why you liked my Russian bad guy. We have lots of Ukrainians in Manitoba. And Poles. My husband's fav joke involves a pole. I must send that to Clare :)
Love the wreaths, Marcelle.
Love the ornament stories, Sharon. I bet you treasure every one. We have a good supply, and 2 trees :) Some happy memories hanging on those branches :)
Loved the ornaments and more than one tree--lovely.
Looking forward to that joke, Toni :)
What wonderful memories the Christmas season brings. As kids we always opened our family presents on CHristmas Eve becuase my mother (who worked for Western Union) had to work Christmas day. The Christmas day presents from Santa got to be opened Christmas morning.
Some of my favorite ornaments on our tree are realy old. They are ones that my mother's kindergarten class made when she was teaching the little ones. Such fond memories.
LOL, Maureen! It's a lovely thing for those who love us to accommodate our tastes :) That's a recipe everyone can love!
Sharon, our family does something along the same lines for ornaments--we've saved all the ornaments our kids have made, and they each hang them every year. We also have a few sets we've collected while traveling, and those ornaments remind us of those trips :) I imagine one of these years, when the kids are ready to move away, we'll have to figure out how to divvy those all up...
Stevie, now I need to know: what are fairy lights? (And how can I get some?)
Clare, love the touching base tree. What a great idea!
Gee Maureen, you make it sound SOOO appetizing
I love the multicolored lights and my favorite ornaments are the older wooden ones from my childhood.
Love the stories and traditions!
My husband and I started a tradition even before we were married. We pick an ornament that represents something significant that happened that year... i.e., a new home ornament, a shell ornament from our trip to Hawaii, etc.
This year, he got an ornament from the university where he got a new job and I bought one of those keyring photo holders in which I'll put one of my Romance Trading Cards with a picture of my book's cover. :)
Marcelle, love Rosemary and Owl!
Sharon, what a fabulous tradition your family has. On a similar note, I've collected ornaments from all my trips so every time I hang an ornament, I remember beautiful places and great times.
Maureen, I gather there's no chance of cabbage fruitcake this year, huh?
Marcelle, when I think of fairy lights I mostly think of the twinkly multicoloured lights we hang on our trees. The very old ones in my parents' collection though have bell-shaped plastic covers over the bulbs, each depicting a scene from a nursery rhyme.
I love decorating at Christmas we usually keep it low key unless my neices and nephews come round
They help dress the tree they are full of wonder and excitement waiting for Santa to visit
Sarah S
Love hearing all the traditions from food to decorations. Love, love the holiday season! We'll have to have a blog on favorite holiday music!! :)
I love multicolored lights on a tree.
Your Christmas dinner sounds worse than Thanksgiving dinner, Maureen. All those carbs must put people into an after dinner coma. I do like a great, calorie laden (gravy on all the dough....and meat) meal like that once or twice a year, but we always go to a Polish buffet instead of making it.
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