Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Oh Christmas Tree!







The tree cutting team: Garry, Cecilia Rose, and Eben.


Little clothespin man made by my sister Sue


Paper ball ornament made of old Christmas cards





Stitched and painted felt angel


Wise Man made by Eben at age 4


A hand painted wooden sleigh made by my cousin's wife for Eben's first Christmas

For years we bought our Christmas trees from local growers, but we started a new tradition last year of cutting down trees from our own woods. They are definitely Charlie Brown Christmas trees - scraggly and scrawny, but not without fragrance and charm, and when decorated they are actually quite sweet to behold. At first I was reluctant to have such a spindly tree after all the years of perfectly shaped commercially raised trees. But we help the woods by thinning them out a bit, the price is right, and most importantly, our granddaughter Cecilia loves going into Grampa and Gramma's woods to find her tree, so I think that the tradition will continue!

I could write several posts about tree ornaments (but I won't!). Suffice it to say, I've designed and made hundreds of Christmas ornaments of all kinds over the years, to raise money at church fairs, as gifts, and for our own tree. But the best ornaments of all are the ones that were made by our children (and now our grandchildren!) when they were small, and they still show up on our tree, year after year.

6 comments:

artslice said...

How fun to hunt for your tree... a great tradition! Love all those ornaments and you're so right, the ones made by the kids are the best. So far we only have 2 of 'em but I plan on saving each and every one.

The painting or drawing in photo #6 is lovely... did you do it and who is it?

martha miller said...

thanks, brenda

that is one of my portraits of a young meca student named zoe brown. you can see it on my website in the portraits section of the gallery @

www.marthamiller.com

yes, hang on to those little heirlooms!

Heather said...

what a lovely Christmas you're having! I love that you're cutting trees from your own woods, what wonderful memories!~
...mine, on the other hand, came from Target ;)

Don Gray said...

Oh those ornaments look so familiar. We have similar ones made by our three children over the years. They are absolutely the best ornaments of all!

martha miller said...

Hi Heather

Thanks for stopping by! I enjoyed looking at your work, especially the Dark Americana series. Just yesterday I took a stack of books on folk art (American, French, British, Mexican) out of the Maine College of Art library, to get some ideas for a Christmas card. I love folk art (and outsider art as well. Art Brut means raw art I believe...)

martha miller said...

Hi Don

Yes, they are the best!! And how about you? Have you ever made tree ornaments?