Ho Ho Ho

As amazing at it seems, 'tis the season already!  I'm not one who goes overboard with the holiday stuff.  Don't get me wrong, I love the Christmas season and the many wonderful things it brings.  (See this post on toffee)  I am a firm believer in NCUAT (No Christmas Until After Thanksgiving)...but I'm not out on the day after Thanksgiving putting up lights and wreaths and blow-up plastic snowmen on the lawn.   Christmas at our house comes a bit more slowly.  I like to bring it out gradually, a few things at a time.  And there seems to be an order to what comes when, although it's happened unconsciously over time.
 

One of the first hints that Christmas is upon us is the Christmas dishes.  Over thirty years ago, my then mother-in-law gave me a piece of Spode Christmas Tree ware.  It was a lovely pomander which still smells of pine when I shake it.  I fell for the pattern and have collected bits and pieces ever since.  I don't have an overwhelming amount but enough to enjoy during the month of December.  

Interestingly, the original Spode factory closed in 2009 and was bought by another company.  

The pieces are now made in Malaysia or somewhere, so one must look for the "Made in England" stamp for the "real thing" nowadays.  I've noticed that it's become, let's say tackier, in recent years, too.  It makes my old pieces seem all the more precious somehow.



The next items to emerge are the Santas.   I did not set out to collect them but somehow, over the years, I have acquired many.  It has become an anticipated tradition for Peter and me to unwrap and display them together.  I love hearing him talk about them as they come out.  "Oh, my Santa on the tractor!"  To me Santa is the embodiment of the season, of gift-giving and generosity.  

The last of the firsts are the lights on the spruce tree in the garden.  About 19 years ago, Paul planted a dwarf Alberta spruce in the center of the garden beds.  Every year we cover it with little white lights.  As the tree has grown, we've had to add more nets of lights.  It is so lovely to look outside the dining room window and see the lights shining.  Because we are out in the country, you can even see the little white-lit tree from the road across the river.  Very sweet and festive. 

So Christmas is coming to our house, in small, treasured steps.  That's just how I like it.