Christmas at Shore Side Farm House

Some of my favorite glass ornaments

This year's Christmas tree is a little six foot tree

     
It has been a tough few weeks. We are removed from our daily living to help rescue our daughter and her husband from a disaster we are very familiar with. She had a pipe burst behind her toilet, which flooded the house requiring extensive demolition and reconstruction. She called the SSFH master carpenter to come help with her portion of the renovations. Fortunately the right insurance took care of much of the work, but the "you might as wells" as we refer to them in our family, were their responsibility and they had to take care of that before the insurance paid fellow came in. As a result, our life was put on hold to help our children, and nothing much has happened here at the farmhouse. After taking a week of recovery to regain stability, it is time to at least do some decorating for the little Christmas we will have here alone.

My new tree ski

My first order of decorating is to put out some seasonal items for primping the mind into the Holiday season. I did this with some wooden Santa's and a

EZ fast Holiday decoration for early season

ceramic tree from Grandma.  I also made some outdoor and indoor greens arrangements...the indoor one will be another posting tomorrow.Then onto the bigger stuff, first order of business is the tree. Since I am doing this alone because the master carpenter is wiped out from the big renovation at our daughters house, I was limited to using a small artificial tree from storage. Not very impressive, but still symbolic of the holiday. You can see in the photo its in its storage box.  This mess in the photo is the selection of stored decorations to choose from. I am determined to make this pile look like a Christmas tree as best I can. Several weeks ago I bought a new tree skirt, it was reduced from $25 to $14 and I bit. I wasn't sure the design was what I wanted but I bought it anyway, trying to get myself into the spirit. It paid off big time.

Tree and ornament boxes

The tree was in two simple pieces to put together like a billard stick, and as you can see in the photo, it fits in a narrow box  maybe 4' x 8"x8". That's not bad for storage, but not an impressive tree. I love Christmas, I will try to work wonders with this minimal tree using my collection of classic glass ornaments. The tree was in two parts, top and bottom. After fitting one into the other, you have to shape up the branches and spread them out. As I said, good for storage, a pain in the neck for decorating. This process took a couple of hours of shaping. Yes, I am particular. I want it to look real. After the shaping came the electric light debacle. I know, I should have found a cheap LED light tree. I didn't, so this old reliable is it. The tired carpenter took on sorting the lights out and we ended up with 200 white bulbs on my little five foot high tree...lots of lights helps a skimpy tree.

Mid Century bulbs from Grandman's house

Then came the glass ornaments. I started with a box of glass ornaments from the 50s that came from Grandma's house.  They started the process, but my artist's eye could not tolerate not showing off my own collection of beautiful glass bulbs, antique, mid century and new. That requried more closet digging but it was worth it. The photos below and the top of page show off some of my beauties. They make Christmas feel special..

Late 20th century bird staring
into an early 20th century highly
reflective "concave" glass piece 

21st century Lobster, icicle, mirror ball 

20th century dove and heart

Tree finished with red bead garlands and illuminated lights
see next photo for the topper

Below is the photo of the tree topper. I just love this vintage Capiz shell star I found many years ago. Getting one now would be a major find. It so versatile, stick some of the light bulbs in it and it lights up, leave it alone for a gentler reflective effect on the star. It is surely one of my favorite vintage decorating items.

Love the translucency, brass trim and the
natural glow of the Capiz shell

21st cent. Lighthouse, 20th century
painted ovoid with lovely design and color

All in all I am pretty smitten with my creation. I pretty much made something from not much. It is a great looking Christmas tree even if it is not live, and not the nine foot tree I usually have and pine after...no pun intended. I'll post in a few more photos of my favorite ornaments that were unpacked this year. Small tree, small display of ornaments. My collection is pretty extensive and runs the gamut from early 20th century through modern day, so another time I will have to write some more on my favorites.

my favorite ornament, painted with pointed bottom on the left, crab on the right, silver glass star top left. 

glass bird, pointed glass bulb, very early pink
antique glass bulb, top right