A few of my favorite things

We put up our Christmas tree today and some decorations. The tree's not a perfect Martha Stewart tree by any standards, but we're happy with it. The tree skirt is a latch hook rug that I made many years before I was married. The poor little angel on top of the tree is the one I made as a kid. She's had a few wardrobe malfunctions over the years. She's been mended and changed a little...but her head is the original! I'm lucky my boys still let me keep my childhood traditions. Believe it or not I still put up the same old manger set my parents had in their house. Most of the pieces came from the five and ten cents store and I still use the cardboard manger. Once again it wouldn't be Christmas in my house without them!

Some of the new traditions in my house include a small collection of nutcrackers. The only one that is of some value is my "chubby jester" Steinbach nutcracker from Germany. I got it one year marked way down after Christmas (in March) because it was missing some parts. Guess no one wanted him :( I improvised one of the parts that was mssing. Once I got him home and did a little googling I was shocked to see how much he would be if he was perfect!! I don't mind that he's not perfect. He's my favorite. :)
In an earlier post I told you about how much I love swans. Here's a picture of my swan ornaments:
Now to make this post an apporpriate post for a knitting blog... here are the pictures of our Christmas stockings. I knitted all of them except my oldest son's (Nick).
His stocking was a baby gift from my cousin who had it made for him by a lady in her church. The rest I knitted. Here are rest of the stockings. Their patterns were all from the old McCall's Needlework and Craft's magazines from days gone by:

The next picture is not of knitting, but it is related to needlework. Here are the crocheted snowflakes that I made before I was married. They were stiffened I think with a sugar solution. I can't remember much about them, like where the patterns came from. I must say though they have kept very well all these years:
Last but not least is the picture of another one of our traditions. This is a homemade Advent calendar:
I made this rather simple calendar of my own design when my oldest was very little. Every year on December 1st without fail the calendar goes up on our wall. My youngest even though he's twelve still enjoys moving the small ornament up on the tree every day. My middle son when he's up early has been known to move the ornament before my youngest gets the chance. I think he still likes it as well, but I don't think he'd admit it. Over all we think it's the best way to count down until Christmas Eve.

Sorry for this long post. I thought you might be interested in our traditions since I've been very slow at my knitting and have nothing new to show you.

Enjoy the very fast approaching Christmas season and I can't forget to wish you...
happy knitting :)