Deck the Halls

Ever since I put up my little pre-lit tree a few days ago, I have been searching for the small, velvet tree skirt that goes with it.  I have prowled through every Christmas box, closet, and drawer where I might have stored it.  It was driving me crazy, because that was one of the last finishing touches I wanted to do with my decorating (the other is finding the six Christmas stockings that I made for my kids some 35 years ago).

I was mulling the tree-skirt mystery over in my mind in bed last night, and I mentally went over again the fact that I remembered temporarily stuffing it into a small basket when I took down the tree last year.  Now the basket sits in the bathroom holding towels, so I knew it wasn't there.  Then it came to me that  I had also put a small stuffed horse pull-toy in the basket,  and I knew where the horse was!  In the trunk!  Sure enough, something red caught my eye when I opened the trunk, and I pulled out the skirt!  Now the little horse sits on it in its place under the tree!

If only I could get the association technique to work with finding the stockings! I hadn't put them out in a while, but I saw them in a snapshot from a Christmas a few years ago and thought how pretty they would look.  (I was looking at the pictures to refresh my memory of how I had decorated the porch wagon.  I saw I had duplicated it pretty well with greenery, pinecones and red berries.)  I needed more on the porch, though, and thought the stockings would be nice arranged along a bench.

The idea for the burlap stockings had come from a women's magazine showing them cross-stitched with yarn in simple designs.  It was my habit back then to make a new craft from a magazine project every Christmas.  (One year I rolled dough and cut out a large Noah's Ark with animals and baked it. It was a good 12 inches high and quite impressive propped on a high shelf of the built-in bookcase!)

I had lined the stockings with green fabric and used the off-beat colors of yarn I had on hand, which were purple, light and dark green,  pink and orange. The stitching went quickly, covering the burlap with designs of holly, ribbons, a wreath, a Christmas tree, stripes, and  the words Merry Christmas, and Joy.  They were charming in a rustic sort of way and hardy enough for use on my screened-porch.

While I didn't find the stockings, I did take on old violin from the trunk, and propped on an antique cabinet it looks quite Christmasey.  I had already nabbed my husband's small, wooden banjo uke that was sitting atop the trunk.  It is leaning on an easel next to the little wooden sleigh.  Maybe the whereabouts of the stockings will come to me tonight, and once that mystery is laid to rest, I will get a little rest of my own!