Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Christmas Tidings - Dining Room Edition

Don't forget more is more. It wasn't just the theme for the kitchen. I wanted CHRISTMAS FESTIVE FESTIVE HI FESTIVE to just jump out and scream at you in the dining room, too.

You know what's fun? Unfolding a brand new tablecloth straight out of the package and thinking, "How pretty!"

Because you don't focus on the wrinkles. Follow that up by ironing a tablecloth. To no avail. So then, decide to wash a tablecloth and throw it in the dryer for 5 minutes. Then 10. Then give up and put a wrinkly tablecloth on your dining room table.

I digress. Easy peasy solution, though. Placemats and dinnerware. So much dinnerware. Better Homes and Gardens, I heart you. Dishwasher and microwave safe? 4 place settings in the box? Done. Get in my cart and I am taking you home.


I used some of my bulkier Hallmark ornaments around the center of the table. Snoopy there dances along with a little song, and Rudolph lights up and sings. Godzilla and Indiana Jones may or may not be on the other side just out of view. Don't judge the awesome.


The rest of my Hallmark and Hallmark-type ornaments went on the garland and lights framing my grandmother's painting. Nothing goes better with the serene front-yard-of-my-mother's-childhood treescape like a KISS ornament that plays very loud KISS music. Me-ow, Fellas. I like my holidays with a bit of rocker chic.

Also, can you spy the Simpsons riding reindeer in a little candy cane mug overflowing with evergreen picks and tiny glittery round ornaments?

The light fixture is a little different this year. I still put some of my favorite hand-made ornaments on there. I decided to cascade them from the ceiling down this year instead of just putting them all around the actual glass hanging around the light bulbs. Since the dining room's decorations bring the eye up anyway, I thought it was a nice touch.

Really, though, you have to take a wider view of the whole room to truly appreciate it.


The fiber optic opera house is back again. I bought that for my grandmother the year I got us season tickets to the Lyric Opera of Chicago. At the time, it was the most expensive thing my just-graduated-from-college, just-started-my-first-real-job self had ever purchased. That was one of the things she had told me in passing that she had wanted to do in her life that she never had. See an opera. We didn't just see an opera together; we saw a frickin' season of 'em. One year of shopping for fancy outfits,one year of me reading her the translations of each show before seeing them, one year of road trips to the Windy City. I have so many great memories from that. One of the best things I ever did, buy us those season tickets. 

Also, I never need to see another opera. Ever. Please. Never again.


When I saw this little opera house in Walmart that Christmas, I just couldn't resist. It was too perfect. All these years later, she still lights up as brightly as that first year. On the same shelf that it sat on in my grandmother's house, only now in mine. As close to the opera as I need be, thank you.

That shelf also houses a little Santa lamp my mother bought me, a very old family ornament of a fuzzy reindeer I always loved, and a sweet scene from the movie Bambi, along with many other things.


I really love the china cupboard this year. The top has some greenery with my grandma's giant old light up Christmas tree. I flocked it by putting a shatterproof QVC ornament wreath on each side. I love how rich the colors are on those ornaments.


The inside of the cabinet holds what really is closest to my heart, though. I put my gram's old placemats in there as the background and really went to town with pieces of an old fake tree for some of what would be dead space. I put the festive breakables I love too much to keep hidden away inside the cabinet, away from prying kitty paws.


The first Christmas decoration my grandpa bought my grandma. Loving it does not mean I am under the illusion that it's lovely. It's not. My grandma and I used to laugh at that little couple and how creepy looking the whole little scene was. It's so ugly that it's beautiful. My favorite kind of beauty. Also, the giant bright pink ornate beaded ornament behind them? Used to be the centerpiece to my grandmother's Christmas living room. Her living room was decorated in pinks and mint greens, and during Christmas, she decorated it with that same color scheme.

Hooray for living rooms! The more uppity sibling of the family room! The room you walk through to get to the rooms in the house where you actually live your life! The living room, that thing your grandparents used to have where you couldn't sit on any of the furniture or walk on the rug. RIP living rooms, circa 1972.

Onto more cherished memories of the past!


Little collection of very old angels. The largest one is holding a light in each hand. She used to sit on top of our tree. With her little white lights. Notice how dark they are now. She may or may not have started smoking on top of the Christmas tree one year. The insides of those little lights may or may not have sort of caught on fire. We just moved her off the top of the tree, never to be plugged in again. Grandma smoked most of her life. A little smoking, a flame here or there, not deal breakers in our home.

You may also be able to spy a little snowman detective in there. I picked that up two years ago and just loved it. I also got a little "German Bear" at the same place that was wearing lederhosen, holding a cuckoo clock in one hand, and holding a beer in the other hand. He broke unfortunately. Why I loved those two ornaments, I don't really know. They just cracked me up. The only criteria to make it into the cupboard is that it has to be A) breakable and B) loved. Antique or not, if there is some emotion or memory attached to it, it's probably in there.

I'll leave you with one of the very few things I still have of my grandfather's. It just happens to be a Christmas decoration. I laugh whenever I unpack it every year.


It's a cartridge! IN A BARE TREE!

Right? RIGHT?!

Am I the only one that finds this funny? Ah, who cares. I know where I get my sense of humor from. Thanks, Grandpa.

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