We, her children, were merely onlookers. ❤️😳🎄

Decorating tree, of course.

And, once the aluminum monstrosity & it's colored light wheel appeared, make jokes about it & laugh like hell.

Which morphed into tree with a root ball. That only lasted 1 yr because when it's winter in Chicago, there is no digging a hole with a shovel.

Then morphed to a fake green tree.



Ps - I recall joking about whether dad was related to crows (birds) because of his rapt fascination for things that glittered.

Dad would chop down a tree from the woods next to our house, then after attaching it to the stand, he'd tie ropes around the trunk and nail them to the baseboards so the tree didn't tip over after our two Siamese cats inevitably climbed it, usually in the middle of the night, lol.

Growing up in northern Michigan, I didn't have to stencil snow onto the windows. We had the real thing.

Now, my mother wasn’t really into decorating and crafts, but for some reason I think she saw this in a magazine and wanted to try it. Since I was designated as the “artist” in the family I got tapped to help. I think I was around 6 years old.

First you blow up a balloon and tie it off. Then you take Christmas gift-wrap ribbon, soak it in water, then wrap it around the balloon like a ball of yarn, except leave gaps. The ribbon stuck to the balloon. Then you let it dry, then pop the balloon. The ribbon was stiff when dry and held its shape.Your final product is strips of colorful ribbon formed into a scribbly ball. They were too big to hang on the tree so we hung them from the ceiling, Lol! That is the extent of my Childhood Christmas Craftmaking memories.

Of course in school every year we made paper snowflakes but I don’t remember those being used at home for anything.

out of the window.

I remember in Kindergarten threading popcorn on needle and thread. I remember it vividly because I wasn't allowed to get up for recess because I wasn't done threading my portion of popcorn on the needle and thread. That wasn't "fun" and I hated it. I still think about that too.


I remember one year is making red and green construction paper Christmas chain garlands. Like in this photo. That was a fun project.




I never thought about or was encouraged to make the house festive outside of school arts and crafts projects. It's just my mom had her particular way decorating for the holidays.



Of course all of those years of suppression of my creativity made me get super creative as an adult. Here's a photo of my Christmas wrapping paper made Victorian style medallions. I hang these on the tree.

construction paper would fade. I really like you medallions. They are beautiful

Thank you for the lovely compliment on my medallions.

🎅🤶🥰

After you wiped them off you had clean windows.

Only the Christmas tree.

The tree would be gone 2 days after Christmas.