Tag Archives: Vintage Christmas

Christmas is Coming-Part 5

31 Dec

SUNDAY MEMORIES

Judy Wills

Well, Christmas is behind us, but the decorations are still up.  Fred likes to leave them up until January 6, or The Three Kings Day.  I don’t mind – it’s only one month each year, and we like the decorations.

Back to our living room/dining room…early on in our marriage, when we were poor, and I didn’t know how to decorate very well (not sure I do even now!), I went for “simple,” and would just lay or drape gold garlands across some of the furniture – like I’ve done here with our teak-wood sideboard:

and other places around the house, as will be shown in other pictures.

There is a “runner” on the sideboard above – we purchased that from a vendor in Rothenberg, Germany, on our Viking River Cruise in 2015.  She had a lovely little shop along the main street, and I liked this one.  We remember that shop and owner every Christmas when we put it out.

The next thing to see is our teak-wood dining room table.  I purchased the runners through the mail when we were living in Heidelberg, Germany in the early 1980’s.  They have held up nicely, and I use them every Christmas.  The pinecone wreath I purchased while we were living in Wiesbaden, and have used it ever since.  I really enjoy it.

This is how the room(s) look from the kitchen doorway:

In the short hallway between the living room/dining room and the kitchen is a short wall, where I hang a Disney Advent Calendar (regular calendar the rest of the year).

On the opposite wall, I hang these Christmas stockings (regularly baskets and greenery).

And now into the kitchen/family room/den area.

There is a short wall between the kitchen and the living room, where I hang this Santa figurine (usually German bells).

Opposite that wall, I have what I call a “green bakers rack.”   As you can see, I’ve added some gold garlands to each of the shelves.  The candle in the middle of the top shelf we purchased in Wiesbaden.  It has a topper that holds a wick that comes off and allows you to place a candle inside that can burn.

The middle shelf holds a figurine of the gate to Heidelberg, Germany.  Our daughter, Karen gave that to us many years ago, and we love it, since we lived in Heidelberg for three years.  There is a small electric bulb inside that I have kept lit all those years – and it has never burned out!

The lowest shelf holds a Lennox cathedral, given to us by my best friend quite a few years ago.  It also has a small electric bulb in it, but I only burn it during the evening hours.  The “angels” I purchased some time ago, and are “Hope” “Faith” and “Love.”

~~~~~~~~~~To Be Continued~~~~~~~~~~

Judy is living in Central Florida with her retired U.S. Air Force husband of 50+ years. Born in Dallas, Texas, she grew up in the Southwestern United States.She met her husband at their church, where he was attending the university in her town. After college and seminary, he entered the Air Force, and their adventures began.They lived in eight of our United States, and spent six years in Europe, where their oldest daughter was born. She was a stay-at-home mom for many years .

  Judy has always been involved with music, both playing the piano and singing. Always interested in exercise, she was an aerobic dancing instructor, as well as a piano teacher for many years, and continues to faithfully exercise at home.

After moving to Central Florida, she served as a church secretary for nearly nine years.Her main hobby at this point in time is scanning pictures and 35mm slides into the computer. She also enjoys scrapbooking.She and her husband have two married daughters and four grandchildren, including grandtwins as well as a great-grandson and a great-granddaughter. She and her husband enjoy the Disney parks as often as possible.

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Christmas is Coming-Part 2

10 Dec

SUNDAY MEMORIES

Judy Wills

I mentioned last time that I would like to describe Christmas decorations – both around the neighborhood, in our house (and others houses we’ve visited), and some of the decorations from years past at our growing-up house and our Aunt Jessie’s house in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and the decorations that our church does each year.

I started last week with the decorations my Mother did around our house, and then what our Aunt Jessie did at her house.

This week I would like to share some of the decorating I did for our house(s) that we’ve lived in.

The first four years of our marriage I don’t think I decorated at all – probably didn’t have either the funds for purchasing anything, or knowledge of how to apply what I saw in the stores and around the area.  Seems like I remember taking a small magazine – Readers Digest size – and folding each page a couple of times in a certain way (I’ve forgotten now how I did it) to make it stand upright, then spray painting the whole thing green. I would then add very small ornaments on it, and call it a Christmas tree!  Unfortunately, I have no pictures of that – only the memory.

So the first pictures I have of anything we did for decorations was when we were in Wiesbaden, West Germany.  The building we lived in had a “competition” with other government buildings for decorations.  This is our building in 1968 – everyone in our building had the same “form” and we added what we wanted in the middle.  I made “Silver Bells” – cardboard bell shapes wrapped in aluminum foil.  Kinda cute.  Our apartment was the top left – at the end of the building.

This second picture is also in Wiesbaden, the following year, 1969 – our last Christmas in Wiesbaden.  It’s a bit difficult to make out the window decoration, but it was a very simple design – sort of a star burst.  I think the center was a paper doily, with “spokes” emanating from the center, with another paper doily at the end of each spoke and some “diamonds” between.  Simple, but we liked it.

Here are another couple of pictures of Christmas morning in our apartment in 1969.  Karen was just three years old here.  You will see our little tree in the background on an end-table.  And then another picture of the small gingerbread house we had.  I don’t remember whether or not I made it or we bought it.  But Karen thought it was a delight!

I don’t seem to have any pictures of decorations until 10 years later – 1979 – when we were in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.  I only have a few from there, but here they are.  The six-plex we lived in was built on a hill, so we have a true “split level” house – lots of stairs, three bedrooms, two and one-half baths.  Not too bad, but they were built very cheaply and were quite noisy and cold.  In any case, here are some of the decorations we did there.

~~~~~~~~~~To Be Continued~~~~~~~~~~

Judy is living in Central Florida with her retired U.S. Air Force husband of 50+ years. Born in Dallas, Texas, she grew up in the Southwestern United States.She met her husband at their church, where he was attending the university in her town. After college and seminary, he entered the Air Force, and their adventures began.They lived in eight of our United States, and spent six years in Europe, where their oldest daughter was born. She was a stay-at-home mom for many years .

  Judy has always been involved with music, both playing the piano and singing. Always interested in exercise, she was an aerobic dancing instructor, as well as a piano teacher for many years, and continues to faithfully exercise at home.

After moving to Central Florida, she served as a church secretary for nearly nine years.Her main hobby at this point in time is scanning pictures and 35mm slides into the computer. She also enjoys scrapbooking.She and her husband have two married daughters and four grandchildren, including grandtwins as well as a great-grandson and a great-granddaughter. She and her husband enjoy the Disney parks as often as possible.

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