Archives for December 2013

A Swedish Christmas

December 20, 2013 By amusingmjblog 3 Comments

Have you been enjoying the week of posts about mom’s house at Christmas? If you are just joining us here’s what you missed: the best of her nativity collection, the most bizarre nativities and her two Christmas trees!

And for the final post of the week I’m showing off her Swedish Christmas decor! I mentioned earlier in the week that she hosts a multitude of people every year at Christmas at three separate Christmas parties all in one weekend. Over the last few years she has picked a theme for her parties and this year it was a Swedish Christmas. I am not mostly Swedish by percent, but as far as the heritage that has been celebrated in my life, the Swedes have been the strongest. My great-grandfather was full blood Swede and my extended family all settled into a small Swedish community in Kansas. So my mom and all her sisters grew up in a very Swedish community full of Larsons, Johnsons, and Isaacsons. And so the Swedish traditions have stuck around a bit, we have tea ring (a breakfast roll) at many family gatherings and several members of my family decorate with the Dala Horse and straw decorations that permeate traditional Swedish decor.

So for her parties my mom collected some of my family’s decorations to supplement her own and we lucked out and found the little straw goats at Ikea for (you guessed it) super cheap. Here they are all packed up in her suitcase like a miniature goat army:

She bought one of those little goats for each person at her party for favors and used them as napkin rings on her plates. (I wish I had a good picture of it because it looked really cool with all of them lining the tables, but alas, her guests actually took their party favors home, so I didn’t get a photo of them). She served at two tables, the first is in the living room:

The centerpiece of each table was a candle tree surrounded by greenery and goats. And those cute trees with the red berries might just make their way to my house sometime soon…

And look she even has nativities hanging on her candle trees:

These cute wooden ornaments are very Swedish and I love the little St. Lucia ones.

Her kitchen table looks very similar to the dining room table but has a little bit more blue on the candle tree:

And here you can see how she used the goats as napkin ring holders:

And last but not least she had the three goats guarding her drink station:

And that’s how you decorate for A Swedish Christmas! Mom served Swedish Meatballs, Tea Ring, dill potatoes, Potatis Skorv (a type of potato sausage dish) and ostakaka with She also served a non alcoholic glogg to drink.

I love the Swedish Christmas tradition of St. Lucia and as a kid always wanted to walk around with candles on my head, but unfortunately my parents thought maybe that was a disaster waiting to happen.

Filed Under: Holiday

A Tale of Two Trees

December 19, 2013 By amusingmjblog 4 Comments

There is a comedian my brothers and I like to quote named Mitch Hedberg, and he has this joke where he says: people always ask me how to get a hold of me and I respond, I can’t tell you where I’m staying, but there are two trees involved.

This blog post reminded me of that joke… anyway, moving on. I’ve shown you some of my favorite of mom’s nativities… and some of the weirder ones, but she doesn’t end her Christmas decorating with the nativities. At my mom’s house there have always been two Christmas trees: one fancy one and one ‘family friendly one’. But both are real trees.

To this day she still has both trees and I love each one in their own way.

The fancy one is always done in white lights and all crystal and gold decorations. Mom taught me as a young child that this tree was for looking only. In fact she used to say (and I would repeat and being the bossy person I am, instruct others to do so as well), “Pretty pretty, no touch”. My mom would always call it out in that tone that only mother’s can achieve: sing songy, yet carries an underlying threat. Yep, you know the one.

Anyway, back to my mom’s beautiful tree:

In her current house this one sits upstairs and has mostly crystal and glass ornaments. For this one she usually finds trees that are more unique , like the one for this year, a little sparse, but it has more character.

The star is a recent addition from Halls in Kansas City… isn’t it gorgeous?!

The other tree in the house has tons of special memories for me. It always has colored lights and is fun and playful. This was the tree we decorated as a family.

And it is full of a lifetime of memories and all of the ornaments that come from countless Mother’s Day out programs. See how cute I was?

And I’m totally sure my mom meant for me to have my white cardigan buttoned all the way up to the top for school pictures. 🙂

I love the idea of two trees so that (one day when I have kids) I can have my well decorated tree, but still give my kids the freedom to decorate with plastic baggie angels that I’ll keep until they are almost in their 30s and yes that’s what is in the background of the photo above.

Christmas is just around the corner… are you ready?

I should mention that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree… neither my mother nor I have a single wrapped present under our tree. Nothing like a last minute wrapping spree!!

Filed Under: Holiday

Jesus is a Duck?

December 18, 2013 By amusingmjblog 1 Comment

So yesterday I explained that my mother has an extensive nativity collection. Most of them are beautiful and meaningful. But today I’m going to show you the ones that lead a little more to the bizarre end of the spectrum.

A few years ago a blog about the Worst Nativity Sets made the circulation around the internet and my twin brother and I had the same reaction: Mom has some of those!! And some of her others are just as bizarre! (see that post here) And although she doesn’t have any made out of bacon, I humbly submit to you my own selection of my mother’s most bizarre nativity scenes. Although confession, after google-ing around to find the link to the worst nativity blog, I realized I didn’t even photograph mom’s own versions of her Veggie Tale nativity and the nativity painted on the front of a wooden Santa, but there is always next year.

But here’s the thing… I am not willing to state that these are the worst nativities, in fact a couple of them are quite beautiful. They simply made this list because they are out of the ordinary and not your standard run of the mill Mary, Joseph and the baby.

So without further ado…

The title of this post:

Our family friend Missy gave my mom this awesome Rubber Ducky nativity that sits in the guest bathroom. My dad is a preacher and as I mentioned in yesterday’s post they host several holiday parties a year. At one such party a little boy was in attendance and my mother being the ever fantastic hostess that she is knew that he would LOVE this little nativity, so she brought him over to see her rubber ducky nativity floating in water on the bathroom shelf. The boy ever so seriously turns to his mother and says… “Jesus was a duck?!?” I’m thinking we made his poor Sunday school teacher’s job WAY harder. If you want to buy your own version, Amazon sells one here.

The next one on the list is one of my favorites and it definitely falls into the bizarre but beautiful category. This one is carved out of a Tagua nut and was a gift from my aunt to my mom. The whole thing is about 2 inches tall and an 1/8 of an inch thick… so I cant imagine how hard it was to carve. But it also looks a bit like Jesus is about to fall off the bottom of the nut.

This next one is actually the illustrations from one of my favorite children’s Christmas books called The Friendly Beasts by Tomie DePaola… but it makes the list because it is a mobile in which all of the major characters in the nativity swirl around baby Jesus in a somewhat dizzying manner. PS… mobiles are extremely hard to photograph, forgive the fuzziness

This next one is fairly new… and could EASILY be your next craft project if you want a matchbox nativity for your very own. My Dad’s former administrative assistant passed away a little while ago, but before that always delighted in finding interesting and unique nativities for my mother and this was one of her finds:

Its hard to see in that picture, but the tips of the matches are painted gold… a very fancy detail on a less than fancy nativity. I love every bit of it.

This is another one of those that skirts that line between interestingly unique and totally bizarre. This one hails from Panama that my mom picked up on a vacation there. I’m pretty sure it is that they don’t have pupils… but something about this makes me feel like Mary looks quite possessed.

This one is remarkably similar to the one I showed you yesterday (link at top of post) but it makes it onto the list because 1. they look a little bit like cigarettes and 2. This is on a greeting card.

My next one is actually beautiful, but it is also a fireplace screen. Proving that they really do have nativities in all forms and fashions. (If you hadn’t already guessed that from today and yesterday’s posts)

nativity8

I’m not totally sure where this one came from, but it makes me think more of voodoo dolls than the holy family… but to each their own!

This is one of my favorite bizarre nativities… yes that is bird baby Jesus hatching out of his egg, but have no fear because all of the birds are wearing hats. AAAAAND the shepherd bird has a sheep. I guess in a world where Jesus is a baby bird the laws of proportions have no jurisdiction.

This next one is a relatively new addition, I think it came from Uncommon Goods a season or two ago. We have had long debates about who the members of the nativity are… is the Sheep/Shepherd Joseph? If so where is Mary? Or was baby Jesus left alone with only the shepherds to watch over him by night?