nichepoetryandprose

In our house, we usually do a countdown to Christmas.  Ours is a countdown through Advent, beginning on the first Sunday in Advent and marking off the days, one at a time.

Most years, I have a Jesse tree, a tradition in some Christian homes.  This celebrates the long genealogy of Jesus who was of the house of Jesse, the father of David.  When my son was little, we had bread-dough ornaments each illustrating Biblical events.  When he grew older, and as the ornaments started to show their age, I put red and green ribbons on our Jesse tree.  The Jesse tree itself is a two to three foot tall branch from a birch tree.  A memory I have through the years is of ironing those ribbons to remove the wrinkles of the year gone by.

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We also have a fabric Advent calendar with pockets for small treats.  Most years we put mint sticks in each pocket.  This year we couldn’t find our usual mint sticks, so we wrapped sticks of chocolate, one for each day in the calendar.

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This year, I decided to create something new to use for our countdown.  On Pinterest, I have seen several examples of countdown ornaments created from tags embellished with various trinkets.  So I made twenty-five of these, since this year Advent and December both began on December 1st.

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I printed tags with the numbers spelled out and fixed a small memento to each one.  Most of these are trinkets I have kept in odd drawers over the years – mismatched earrings, buttons, acorns, feathers, shells, Christmas pins and so on.  I threaded a ribbon through a hole punched in the tag.  Each day since December 1, I have hung a new ornament, tying them to the bar of a drying rack we have in the living room.

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The ornaments are pretty and remind me of the days ahead and the days that have come and gone.

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Do you count down the days until Christmas????

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Copyright  2013  Jane Tims