Signs of the Holidays

Aren't the natural materials just wonderful in these wreaths?
Simple shapes
Pods, cones, grasses and fruits on a bed of green.

I remember reading somewhere that Colonial Williamsburg replaces the wreaths all during the holiday season so that the displays are always fresh.

Smell the fresh cut trees on the Christmas Tree lots. I love that perfume. For the past few years we have gone to using an artificial tree. Save the trees and all of that. And, to tell the truth, save the money. I did not even price trees this year -

Having an artificial tree is convenient. Jim just went into the basement and carried up the box. No shopping or tieing a tree to the top of a car. Free - well, pre-paid. This one is five years old so its coming close to Free if you amortize the cost.

Not at all like the young man in Munich, Germany - riding away from a Christmas Tree stall with a tree wrapped in a netting bag tied to the back of his bicycle.

Not like the year I went out to the woods with Buck Hall, one of Mama's cousins, to cut down the tree for his mother. To me it seemed that we wandered for a looooog time until he settled on one that looked tall enough and right for his mother's living room. Then "wham" it fell and I followed behind as he dragged it home. It was "just right" - touched the ceiling, as I recall. I loved helping to hang the ornaments. The room filled with a lovely smell of pine.

Not like the year in Brooklyn when Jim and I bought our first Christmas tree - an over-ambitious tree - that when the boughs straightened out - filled the living room. We hardly had space to walk around it.
Jimmy was a year old. He loved it. And, it was lovely!

Christmas trees are lovely!
The ornaments - saved from year to year -
are an album -
memories -
a joy to savor.