I love all things Christmas! And I love to Christmas-ify the house. In recent years I've fallen in love with vintage Shiny Brites, and I can't seem to stop buying them. Here they are on the large antique bottle dryer we have mounted as a kind of light fixture in the dining room. (It's great because you can hang anything from it.)
Beneath it, in a manger built (by Clementine) from bits of several block sets and a pair of candle holders, is the nativity we got at the Union Square Christmas market in New York City last December. It's felt, can't remember where from. Central Asia. I think one of the 'stans. Does anyone know?
I love the way the chandelier looks at night:
Well hello, Witch.
And Hazel. Cat pictures. Weird. What are you doing here?
Little oddities.
The living room.
One of the antler women we brought home from San Miguel de Allende last year.
Dinosaurs roam freely. We have a dinosaur problem. This reindeer is from Mexico, last week!
So that nativity scene above was our first, but then I couldn't resist this one from India at our favorite store Cargo. It's all tiny and adorable, and lives inside a "clock box," also from India.
This painting! Jim and I painted this together years ago. Mostly Jim though. We've finally put it up.
There are some vignettes happening in the pharmacy cabinets.
Ornaments from Mexico make a backdrop to terra-cotta figures from Provence:
A French paper village, with a Mexican nativity retablo purchased in Austin TX while on book tour:
And this tin nativity found at the wonderful Montevilla Antiques Mall for a few bucks.
(There may be a beaver skull in the corner for no good reason.)
In the background is Clementine arranging a house for her kitten doll Marte inside the other pharmacy cabinet. Luchador, of course, on the sofa. (His name is Sin Cara, or "Without a Face.")
In the kitchen:
The coffee table is a procession of deer (with some help from camels and zebras)
pulling Santa's sleigh.
Someone on Twitter told me that they call these deer "Glambi's", which is pretty perfect.
The tree!
With being gone for 2 weeks of December, we decided to go with a fake tree for the first time ever, and I've kind of always wanted a white one, so here it is. I LOVE IT.
My grandmother won this Christmas village in a contest decades ago. She probably never imagined it populated with monkeys, three-headed dragons, and Ultraman. (Clementine was here.)
Stockings made from old sweaters.
This adorable candle holder from Copenhagen,
a present from Alexandra when she went there last Thanksgiving.
Happy holidays!!!