To keep suspense up a bit, let's have a look at my decoration ideas first.
When I was a child, I bought small Christmas ornaments for my grandmother's artificial tree. The memory inspired me to make this set of 10 miniature wire crochet ornaments from colorful copper wire. Of course there are so many more colors, so if someone does not want pink or orange on the tree, no problem!
These are the big siblings of the mini ornaments. They too come in lots of different colors. They look beautiful in candle light.
Just as beautiful look these light baskets in different sizes. You can't only use them for tea lights, but also to collect your coins or to drop your earrings and rings for the next day. They are also a nice gift filled with some candy.
Now I have made you wait long enough. It's time to announce Cat's Wire's Christmas giveaway!
Let me know one of your Christmas memories in a comment to this post or, if you don't celebrate Christmas, tell us about some other holiday memory of yours and you can win this ....
.... rainbow ornament!
It's about 2.5 inch or 6.5 cm high and is made from different colors of copper wire and even some bronze wire.
Put it on your tree, it looks great in the light, or if you don't have a tree, hang it up elsewhere and just let the bright colors make you smile. Rainbows always make me smile!
The winner will be drawn from all those who commented until the 30th of November, so don't forget to leave something that lets me contact you.
Now I wish you much fun on your trip down the memory lane :-D
I was around 5 years i guess &the day started with some of us going early to grans parent to help while we kids played in the snow, building a huge snowman my older coisine lifted me up on and joined in my fantasy. Soon the whole family from both sides had arrived and we admired the huge christmastree, filled with candypops.. Talk laughter, looks! Huge snowflakes drifting down! Then longtable with food forever until finally, gathering in livingroom! But..granpa came back & no santa? Noone left but suddenly santa came and we yungest belived a year more! ended with all kids playing with new toys & sharing & all 30 of us very happy!
ReplyDeleteI remember one year, when I was still very small. After a restless night's sleep, as we all have on that fateful eve, running downstairs to fine half the room buried under enormous bags of presents. I don't remember a single thing i got, but I do remember my old cat stealing the turkey leg, which was in fact bigger than his head, from my plate that rested on my lap. That was probably the fastest I'd ever seen a cat move, especially while dragging something of that size!
ReplyDeleteOne Christmas Eve, after we had moved into the house in which my sister and I share a room (that really narrows it down--we've been in that house 11.5 years, though we're finally about to move), we kept whispering and *ahem* talking apparently pretty loudly long after we'd gone to bed. Finally Mom came in and read us the Christmas chapter from Farmer Boy, where Almonzo and his siblings woke up their parents at I think 3:15 in the morning--a whole hour before they needed to be up! And then she told us (very firmly) to go to sleep now and stop talking.
ReplyDeleteI suppose we did stop talking after that, but I mainly remember the bedtime story (it's still one of my favorite scenes from the entire Little House series) and how comfortable and cozy it was to be read to.
We always had an artificial tree - it was an ugly tin foil thing but we had much delight in decorating the tree every year - I started a tradition when I was old enough to collect ornaments each year to put on my own tree when I was older - each one had a special meaning. When my children were born I bought a beautiful tree that was very tall and had lots of fairy lights. I have been able to continue the tradition with a fresh generation and starting my childrens Christmas Ornament treasury - we buy something special for each child every year and they put them away in their memory boxes ready for when they can have a tree of their own.
ReplyDeleteI remember staying up late, long after the children had fallen asleep, to wrap their presents. Each one had to be perfect with tons of hand curled ribbon on top. I wanted each present to be a special as the gift inside. It must have been 4am when I finished, my back sore from being bent over gifts all night. Then I arranged them beautifully under the tree, and cleaned up the mess to take out to the trash. I hurried outside bare foot with no sweater on. Thinking all the while how good my bed was going to feel, and who should I run into Santa!! Noooo, my neighbor who had been doing the samething as I. We stood at the fence freezing as we chatted more excited about what was to come than the children would eventually be. The sun was peeking over the horizon before we left the fence that morning to sneak in to our beds it couldn't have been more than an hour or two before waking to the joyful squeals children. Did they notice how beautifully the gifts were arranged under the tree, or their beautiful presentation, no not at all. And did I care, not for a second for the joy was not in the gift but in the giving, and the smiles on the faces of those that received. That was by far the best Christmas ever!
ReplyDeleteMy most vivid Christmas memory almost started out as a tragedy. When I was 12, my Grandad, who I was very close to, had a heart attack about 10 days before Christmas. My family and other relatives rushed to be with my Grandmother and take turns at the hospital. Christmas seemed forgotten. But, despite everything, my sister and I decided we HAD to put up some decorations. Since we were too young to drive a car to get a Christmas tree, I climbed up a huge cedar and sawed off a branch that was in the approximate shape of a Christmas tree, about 4 feet long. We brought it in, put it in a bucket, moved it to where the Christmas tree normally stood and decorated it. Definitely a Charlie Brown tree but we loved it! The creche was set up (the 3-legged sheep leaned against the back wall) and we cut out LOTS of paper snowflakes and made garlands. We were so glad we did this because my Grandad was released from the hospital on the 24th! Neighbors had brought over tons of food, and even though my Grandad was very weak, he sat at the table, and we had a huge feast on Christmas Day, celebrating our togetherness. Having my Grandad there was the best present I could hope for!
ReplyDeleteWOW! That's an amazing ornament, I've never seen anything quite like it- and I cherish my holidays, you may be sure!
ReplyDeleteEspecially my tree- my Christmas tree is an essential part of my whole year! Every year I get ONE really significant new ornament.
All this, so I can spend Christmas Eve indulging in my favorite Christmas ritual- falling asleep under the tree, watching the light-shadows on the ceiling change and shift while the colors blink on and off. Now you've got me in a holiday spirit!
carapacenator(at)gmail.com
Wow, so many great memories to choose from, year after year of love and family! Honestly my favorite part of Christmas (and it goes to this day) is the special meal we have on Christmas Eve. My parent were both from Germany (I am the first person in our family born in the states). Every year, we make meat rolls and home made spaetle (sorry, don't know the correct spelling). My parent are both gone now, but my sister and I continue to prepare this meal every Christmas Eve for our entire family and we have taught my 17 yr old daughter how to make this and are working on my sisters 10 yr old daughter. We can almost feel my mother helping us to mix the stiff dough for the noodles every year.
ReplyDeleteI was lucky enough to inherit a rainbow of Christmas tree ornaments from Cat, but I still like that one too!
ReplyDeleteMost memorable Christmas at the moment is when husband and I moved to the current house I am living in almost a year ago now. First of all: I moved 3 days before Christmas and second of all: gotta have the house ready for a Christmas party. Somehow on Christmas eve we locked ourselves out of our bedroom and we tried to pick the lock with no success. We almost called a 24 hour locksmith!!! What we ended up doing is to literally hammer the doorknob off to the door. Not exactly the best way to start Christmas.
We since replaced the doornob with one of those electronic typepad ones.
You have the most amazing wire work! I saw some of your work on Ravelry and had to come here to see more. WOW.
ReplyDeleteOne of my earliest Christmas traditions was that we always had orange juice with our bedtime snack on Christmas eve. Seemed like an odd thing to have, it was not till I was older that I found out why. My parents had us believing that Santa not only brought the presents, he decorated the tree too. So they had to get us to sleep quickly on Christmas eve, so they would give us OJ spiked with a bit of vodka to ensure that we soon had sugar plums dancing in our heads!
Julie (shopjbk at verizon dot net
HI I HPOE YOU HAVE A VERY HAPPY THANKSGIVING DAY WITH YOUR FAMILY,I hope to win the ornament, I found your blog very artistic, and beautifull.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the opportunity.
My email is irmapolanco@yahoo.es
My fav tree ornament has to be the angel on top of mums tree. She brought it the year I was born, so she is getting on a bit now - her wings are crooked, her 'wig' isn't on straight and her dress is tatty but I still wouldn't have anything shinier on top of the tree! Your ornaments look lovely!
ReplyDeleteAs always, your creations are gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite Christmas memories is that my Dad would procrastinate on wrapping his gifts until Christmas eve. So, part of my "duty" was to bundle up really well and go outside to his workshop after dark. There, we would wrap gifts together and talk, laughing as my Mom would call out to us, asking what we were doing. :)
I just put up my Christmas tree this weekend and another of my favorite memories was to curl up in the dark and watch the lights with a mug of hot chocolate and soft music playing in the background.
a.craftychick@gmail.com
My favorite memory is bundling up warm and taking a couple of thermos of hot chocolate and some cookies getting the car loaded and driving to town to see all the Christmas decorations. We'd drive for hours looking at the various decorated homes listening to Christmas songs playing on the radio. Halfway through our route we'd stop at a truck stop and get a treat of either pie or hot fudge sundaes. then we'd go back out to look some more before heading home. Usually by this time the Christmas music would be replaced by a retelling of "A Christmas Carol".
ReplyDeleteThis is a tradition that we still carry on today. Although the truck stop is gone now replaced by a strip mall so we have to either bring along snacks or stop much sooner in our outing.