vintage christmas love

Some of our most treasured Christmas ornaments are the ones that I have from my childhood. My mom sure knew how to make Christmas wonderful and magical for us. That is one of the reasons that we make an effort to get past the horrible commercialism of the holidays and create some of our own special magic for our girls.

Here are just a few of the ornaments I remember from so long ago, now hanging on our own tree this year. There are more, handmade ones too, but we have not finished decorating yet.

And now this year we have something so special to me that I can barely stand it! This wooden tree is from my grandpa's house, I remember it so well, it means so much to me to now have it in my home. The girls were delighted when we brought it out. The little woman with the broom (Mrs. Claus?) was always my favorite. (Too bad she is not facing the camera...)

And here are the girls in their new winter dresses. I gave them to them on Winter Solstice. I ended up making a jumper style dress for Chloe... she is so long now that I didn't have anywhere near enough fabric to make a long sleeve down to her ankles dress like she wanted. But she seems to be very happy with this one. And Chessa loves hers so much, she says she is never going to take it off. I actually cheated on her dress... the bodice part was already done, sitting in a box of fabric for about 7 years! I have made a similar dress of darker green fabric for Chloe when she was 2. Apparently I had cut out a light green one but never finished it! (Kinda pathetic, I know.) So I just added some extra fabrics to the bottom to make it long enough. Both dresses are flannel, so soft and cuddly!

And in one last bit of news, dear Linda from Natural Suburbia is having a wonderful giveaway on her blog. Such beauty this sweet and talented woman creates with wool! There is just a bit more time to enter, so if you have not already done so, you should go quickly check it out. (Although I do think it would be nice if I won, since tomorrow is my birthday, I will be 37!)

Now back to the sewing machine...