Everything back to normal?!

Yep, he isn't wearing his Santa hat anymore. I'm always late with removing the Christmas decorations.

I packed my nativity scene yesterday.

When you look carefully, there is something very odd about this set. I inherited it from my parents and I'm not sure whether the set was actually theirs' or my grandparents'. My mother was a very practical woman who decorated minimal for Christmas. We used to live in a very small apartment. Having a Christmas tree meant that something else had to be moved. Where to? That was the problem. We always had a Christmas tree and in my memory my mother hated it every year. So I'm not having many memories about this scene and the (very ugly) stable that goes with it. The set wasn't put up every year, that's for sure.

The odd thing about this set are the proportions of the statues. Look here are two shepherds. One is so much bigger than the other.

and baby Jesus looks about 5 years old in comparison to Mary. While packing I suddenly had a 'vision'; perhaps my mother made one undamaged nativity scene out of two. It would be so much like her. Throwing the damaged chalk statues of their nativity set as well as those of my grandparents' set away and keeping the best ones, no matter that there is a difference in size. So now I have a large Jesus, big and small Kings and a smile on my face, I'm not sure whether she actually did this, but the thought that she could have done it is enough to make me smile.


The best thing about this nativity scene is the way it is packed. Do you keep your old newspapers to pack again and again and again? I even reread them :-O

Does tea (=thee) work against fall-out? That was something that was bothering the population beginning Januari 1962 (the answer is and was no!). Does anybody cares nowadays what to do against fall out?


And there is some vintage Christmas wrapping paper to pack with too.
Every year I put the statues back in newspapers starting from 1956 and ending 1965. This takes too much time actually. So that's why the first week of Januari already ruins my resolutions. At least I got this excuse!

There is more Christmas in this blog post;

Remember Wanda? She and I were swap mates in Sweet and Sinister swap. The vintage cupcake plates that I sent her back then didn't make it in one piece, so I sent her another totally Dutch package as some sort of consolation. Sorry I have forgotten to make pictures and I think Wanda has forgotten that too. At the end of 2008 Wanda sent me a Christmas goodie bag and a whole box of snacks, which disappeared miraculously ;-). I love it!

And the last Christmassy item until let's say December 2009 should have been the award that was given to me  by Jeanette, 'the Christmas spirit award' but I cannot upload photos for the last three hours :-(. I guess I should have chosen another title for my blog post.
Just check Jeanette's blog, she is the Dutch styling queen! Her home appeared in one of our major home decorating magazines 'Ariadne at home'. She has fab, authentic and creative ideas about home decorating.

I received a lovely award from Elly too. Well I guess you all know Elly's crisp and lovely blog by now and if you don't just pop over, you won't be sorry! I was planning to do something immediately with those rewards, another resolution that doesn't work, though this time it's Blogger's fault.
Ok there is no reason to write another post about this soon!
See you soon!