Author Topic: Holiday Images - Indoors  (Read 23734 times)

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: Holiday Images - Indoors
« Reply #20 on: December 22, 2006, 02:09:36 pm »
One more of our Christmas tree:



Holy mackerel, it touches the ceiling!  :o

And you can see all that lovely snow through the windows!

Beautiful!

Merry Christmas, Lee!
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline Penthesilea

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Re: Holiday Images - Indoors
« Reply #21 on: December 22, 2006, 03:40:36 pm »
Today we decorated our Christmas tree.
What always struck me with American Christmas trees (as you see them in TV series/movies) is that they are totally covered with ornaments, lights and garlands. You barely see any green from the tree.
By German measures, my Christmas tree is pretty overloaded, since the kids love it this way. But maybe by American measures it's still almost naked  :laugh:?



(Please ignore the mess on the book shelf. It always looks like this  :P. No matter how many book shelves we have, there's never enough space. We always have more books than space to store them and they stand and lie in double rows.)

Offline Phillip Dampier

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Re: Holiday Images - Indoors
« Reply #22 on: December 22, 2006, 10:49:13 pm »
Here's the view from the master bedroom (for all you botanists out there, there are three cactuses on the left and a sheffellera benjamina on the right). Outside, you can see the hot tub with a three-foot talll hat of snow on it on the right:

Ohmygod... look at that snow.  That is the snow we usually get here in Rochester -- more than 120 inches on average every winter season (thank you "lake effect snow" -- cold air blows across the warmer Great Lakes and the result is six inches of snow an hour during a lake effect "event").  But since global warming and El Nino, our winters have been getting increasingly mild.  We still have no snow -- and the weather event that dumped all that snow on Colorado arrived here in the northeast in the form of a prolonged rain storm today.


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Offline Phillip Dampier

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Re: Holiday Images - Indoors
« Reply #23 on: December 22, 2006, 10:55:11 pm »
Today we decorated our Christmas tree.
What always struck me with American Christmas trees (as you see them in TV series/movies) is that they are totally covered with ornaments, lights and garlands. You barely see any green from the tree.

Yes, we love to pack everything on the tree we can.  The new trend these days is for all white lights, and not the colored ones.  I grew up with my parents using those big "nightlight" size bulbs, but my grandparents preferred the "twinkle light" mini-lights, and so do I.  I elected to put both twinkle and bubble lights on mine, but I got those "programmable" lights that let you set them up to fade slowly in and out, so not every light is on at the same time.

My aunt doesn't put garland on her tree - just ornaments from a tree purchased from the Boy Scout troops locally.  My mom would never have a tree without garland and tinsel.  I never got around to putting tinsel on my tree this year.

My living room is going to be cleaned up before Christmas if it kills me!  I'll post some more pictures, and maybe even take the camera out on a road trip and capture some of the "ignunce" from neighbors who have turned their front yards into virtual game shows with ridiculous light shows.

We can thank the People's Republic of China for inundating us in cheap light strings (and they keep coming up with new holidays when we can use them!)
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Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: Holiday Images - Indoors
« Reply #24 on: December 23, 2006, 11:11:59 am »
Scene of my progeny huddled before the woodstove. My daughter is accompanied by her mac and my son by the great beast who follows him everywhere.

"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: Holiday Images - Indoors
« Reply #25 on: December 23, 2006, 11:14:05 am »
The black sheep ornament that I got at the sheep festival where I met Mel.

"chewing gum and duct tape"

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Re: Holiday Images - Indoors
« Reply #26 on: December 23, 2006, 11:32:22 am »
Colorado-style drying rack for wet hats and mittens:

"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline Andrew

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Re: Holiday Images - Indoors
« Reply #27 on: December 24, 2006, 11:49:08 pm »
A warm virtual welcome everyone to my home in Boston this holiday season!
Since Boston is full of old architecture in the style of even older architecture - including my house, which is brick Tudor - it is natural to decorate in historic styles too. 

The outer entry hall, with an unusual hybrid of pointsettia, with curling bracts which give the effect almost of peonies.


A balsam fir, decorated in a nineteenth-century German style with mostly glass balls and candle lights.  My mother was of German descent, and of course Christmas very often celebrates family heritage along with everything else - that's definitely how I celebrate it.  I was interested to see Penthesilea's tree, back a few posts ago, decorated in much the same way, with lots of the green showing through.  There's just one set of twenty candle lights on my whole seven-foot tree.  Also, I only put it up today, Christmas eve, just as described in E.T.A. Hoffmann's story The Nutcracker.   This custom is all but extinct in the United States, the norm seems to be to put them up at the beginning of December when the stores do.



The clock is not German, it's French, a Morbier - but that is a town in the Jura, which is not that far from Germany.
Here it is with a hat of balsam and berries.  In the original scenario of the Nutcracker ballet, the clock starts to behave oddly when night falls and the magic starts.



Here are two intricate filigree brass ornaments which like the clock remind me of Drosselmayer's mechanical ingenuity in the Nutcracker. In the story he presents the children with a castle full of mechanized moving figures.





The musical angel is a reminder of Hoffmann's fascination with music especially Mozart, for which he was rewarded long after his death by having his story become the basis of Tchaikovsky's work.  Tchaikovsky too admired Mozart almost beyond any other composer.   This candlestick is certainly in an Austrian style.



These translucent glass ornaments are my favorites.  They usually look opaque white, covered with glitter which flashes a little turquoise.  But if there is light behind them, a rosy dawn shines through - another effect I remember being described as part of the journey to the magic kingdom in the story.  I hung this one in front of one of the candles to make it easier to get this effect.  It also reminds me of a very pretty Christmas card from one of my great friends on this list, with a snowy glittering pale rose dawn.



I hope everyone is enjoying a fabulous holiday tonight and tomorrow, celebrating your own traditions!!!

Best wishes all,
Andrew

Offline Wayne

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Re: Holiday Images - Indoors
« Reply #28 on: December 26, 2006, 01:25:10 pm »
 :D    Wonderful pix Andrew, and your house is so beautiful!!!  Thanks for sharing it with us ...     :)
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Offline Arad-3

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Re: Holiday Images - Indoors
« Reply #29 on: December 26, 2006, 02:01:34 pm »
Some pics to show my decorating. This is the first year that I have  a blue tree. I made it all blue this year in memory of my dad, and his beautiful blue eyes.


« Last Edit: December 26, 2006, 02:05:56 pm by Arad-3 »
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