Part 4: On Vacation in Cali, other decorations

While in California we took a few pictures of about 1/3 of my grandmothers decorations. I memory card got full. Oh well I will show you what I got any way. Just need to realize there is about three times what you are seeing.

The Santas to the left here are on the inside stair case going up stairs. My Vavo painted about twelve of these one year. None of us have them. It is one of the few things she actually made for herself and didn't give away.

At the Santas feet are some of my Va-vo's blocks they are scattered about the house and will probably be some where in most photos taken during this holiday.

The next photo you see the beam of kissing balls. These are the real old ones my grandmother made in the 50's till about the 80's. The new ones are hanging from chandeliers and a Christmas tree in another room. They are also decorating one of the wood gifts for the year.

In this picture it is still the beam of balls but you can see other decorations too. On the right side you see my Vavo's little kids tree. Meaning it is made out of wood children. She had my No No cut all those and about 500 more one year and made wreaths and trees and other things out of them and gave them away. I was a kid then so I never got one.

Next to that you can see some little wood houses she had cut by No-No and she painted them. Once again about 500 more than what you see where made. I do own some of those. If you click on the picture to see it bigger you will see a tower of tables that is what she made this year. Store bought and No-No is in heaven. But she painted them all. Also in the blow up you can just see some wood angels in the back of the room at the top of the wall that she made a long time ago. Those where carved and painted. No-No cut them too.
This next item is know as a Swedish tree. When I was a kid it had a lot more hand made ornaments on it. But as you can tell it leans a lot. Over the years growing up it was knocked down a lot and we broke the limbs and knocked it off kilter. Plus we broke a lot of the ornaments too. If you notice the lower branches are metal where as the top ones are painted red wood. My Vavo keeps fixing it. We actually have two of these in the house the other is smaller I just never took a picture of the other.

On top of this tree is an angel bu this one is a Swedish angel made out of straw. There are bread dough ornaments cloth ones pewter, Swedish, store bought, handmade. You name it this tree has it on it.

Below the tree are more blocks waiting to be branded. If you look closely at the picture on the top is what use to be our family sheep brand about 100 years ago by my great grandfather. It has since gone to someone else. We don't use it as a brand any more just decoration to remember the past.

The next two photos are of this years wood gift. She painted little tables for all of use that are married and have households. Mine is Green with a Christmas wreath painted on it It is one of the round ones as there are two styles. AS there is usually an argument as to who get s which item my Vavo had us draw numbers this year and we picked in that order.

With over 64 people coming to Christmas. It is real fun on the day of Christmas eve, presents just kept coming. At first they where all just stacked in one pile. But if we leave them that way a great big mess ensues trying to find every ones presents and get it to them. So during that day it was my project ( job) to sort out the presents and make stacks of families, so it would be easier.

We choose my generation and the ones above to make stacks out of. If you are younger than that, you have to find who your pro generators is in the previous one or two generations and find that stack. With five generations all together there are lots of us, too many small stacks if we go down to many more generations so we stop at he first three then it is your parents or grand parent you have to find. I hope that made since. We open presents Christmas eve so this is only like this for about five hours.

As people approach the house Christmas eve they are greeted by about six outside Christmas trees only two of my photos came out half way decent so you will only see a tiny bit of it. Click on the photos to see the trees .