2014 Day 14 - Places We Go

Today I was thinking about how Christmas looked at my parent's house around the time I took over the decorating.

The 1st step was to remove the chair that was in the corner of the living room - always a drama.  The other problem with that area was that they had a huge swag lamp that hung right where the tree was to go.  It always seemed annoying to have that there.....so glad its gone.  The tree from that era had individual holes to stick in each branch (similar/but different to what I have now)....it was a pain to assemble.

The other main thing I see is the overall decor of the house - the carpet was orange shag (I know...ick) and the furniture was big, bold flowers (brown, orange on a cream background) and there were 2 rocking chairs in green plaid!  O.M.G.  What were people thinking in the 70's?!?!

The tree had various glass ornaments all from the 60's...totally vintage.  You'd purchase a box of ornaments and they would be different colours...so it was very eclectic.  The lights on the tree were all the larger bulbs and were also multi-coloured.  The best bit was all the TINSEL!  No one has that any more...and it was a pain to put on and take off, but did look beautiful.  I remember Hobo's tail (our cat...see Hobo) would act like a magnet and he'd have tinsel following him around.

To add to the colour ciaos....we'd hang a plastic poinsettia off of each of the lamp shades. 

I pumped up the visual volume even more by putting stuff around the room doors (can't remember exactly, but there was something over every door down the hallway...and thankfully I only did it the one year).  Mom also made various table top decorations, which were all lovely, but I haven't been able to find a photo of them.  There was one with Santa in a sleigh and another pretty blue and silver one.  Once the family tree was 7 pieces...I took over the Christmas decoration because it was easy for 1 person to do.

A few years after I took over, I added mini clear lights and only put ornaments that matched each other (colour wise) on the tree (green and red and gold...left out the pink and teal).

Eventually I pulled out all the coloured lights and added more mini-clear ones.

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This year on Dec 14, we mailed Santa's letter.  It was also my BFF's 50th Birthday!