Timberrrrrrrr!

We finally got the Christmas tree up.

Exactly two minutes later – in an unsupervised split-second – Man-show pulled it over on top of himself and earned some angry branch-scratches on his belly.

We calmed his howling, packed all glass and ceramic ornaments into our do-not-use box, and decorated the tree like this:

Please note the non-festive bottom half of the tree. It offends my aesthetic side but prevents trips to the ER, so I guess we're even.

The rest is pretty (see Hello Kitty sharing space with the Sydney Harbour ornament we picked up back home in April.):

And the 2006 Berry-picture-ornament is here, next to a really amazing soft doll ornament Nathan's mom sent:

My tree-decorating drink came in a bottle so pretty I wished I had a miniature to put on the tree – although it looks bizarrely like perfume:

I drank it instead, and all was well.

For those who've asked (and who have his leering image seared into their memories): NO, Feral-Rabbit-Angel did not get on the tree this year. The kids are just not scare-proof and besides, I don't like his attitude.

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Round and round the Christmas Tree

It's Christmas Eve back home in Australia, so the koala on our tree is going to demand a beer and some cold chicken any minute now.

This one was never intended to be a Christmas decoration. Five years ago a drunken sailor in New Orleans heard my accent, and he grandly and determinedly presented me with the koala. He insisted I keep it. Because every Australian needs another clip-on koala.


...but I've become quite attached to him in my homesick times and he clings so neatly to the tree. Berry loves to put him on a different branch whenever she walks by.


I'm very fond of our tree and its eclectic (ok, odd) mix of ornaments. Apart from the koala, some of the highlights are the inscribed 1980 Christmas ball ("I was about to chuck this out," Nathan said, "but then I saw 1980 and I thought whoa, that's old.")


We have the mouse painted on a glass triangle with 'Nathan 1979' gold-penned on the bottom, and Berry's Hello Kitty snow-globe ornament is a new addition this year.


Then there's Santa painted on a crab shell, from Louisiana.


Below we have the photo-frame ornament with the picture of Berry in Germany when she was one year old, rugged up in her baby polar bear jacket (shame you can't see the ears).


And my husband's in the gallery of photo ornaments too – at 11 years old. Vintage, baby.


The old ceramic pony in the glass bell is just one of scores of other ...interesting... ornaments we have around here. Don't even get me started on Nathan's 1980s shrinky-dink holly wreath or his 1970s paper-and-wool constructions.


But the weirdest decoration of all – the crowning glory of all that is bizarre and inappropriate in ornament-world – has to take a long break from Christmas appearances. That's right, Berry is still frightened of our tree-topper, the inherited Feral Rabbit-Angel.


Weird, pasty little human hands. Leering hare face. In an angel costume. She's right to be scared, isn't she. She caught one glimpse of his awful little head poking out of the Christmas box and started a rapid-fire, "No scary reindeer, mommy! No scary reindeer!"

So Feral Rabbit-Angel is banished to a box in the garage until next year, or the year after, or the year after that, or whenever he can learn to STOP TERRIFYING THE CHILDREN, ALREADY.


Okay now. That's better.

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Tree-Cows

I bet you didn't know toy horses were meant to be Christmas decorations.

Nor did we, until Berry showed us.

Berry's Nanna gave her a Pasture Pals set of collectible horse breeds before Christmas. She spent quite a while corralling them neatly on the floor, and then: light bulb. She started perching them in the tree. They each sat quite neatly on their own branches, and we became perhaps the only people in the state with two-inch Thoroughbreds, Appaloosas, Pintos, Clydesdales, Shires and Lusitanos adorning their Christmas tree.

And Berry's likely the only toddler in the country who now calls horses "tree-cows". We can only hope she'll shake that off before primary school.

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Ye Olde Feral Rabbit Angel

I'm right about the feral-rabbit-angel, aren't I.

After several requests, I got my pregnant self up on a chair with the camera, to take a picture of our scary tree-topper. I know it's a tradition – it's been in Nathan's family for longer than I could say – but it's all wrong, and shouldn't be considered a Christmas decoration.

Halloween, perhaps?

(No wonder Berry cried.)

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