It has taken some time to get decent photos of some of the ‘baubles’ on my tree – so its a big thank you to Keiron and his very posh camera and here we go……..

First up it has to be the tiny celluloid dolls – they have been a part of Christmas all of my life, and of my late Mum’s too – they date from around 1900 (she was born in 1919) and have been re dressed quite a few times. They are dented and cracked as celluloid does not really stand the test of time but they are so special to me and always get packed away very carefully for the next year.

isn’t she lovely?

They make my Christmas every year!

But, I don’t want to bore anyone so I’ll get back to my chosen few – firstly check out the whole tree in daylight!

I just need a bigger one I guess – there are so many treasures on there – its hard to choose which to share….

My children’s first Christmas bauble has Keiron’s name and 1978 on one side and Toria with her 1983 on the other…

The wooden hammer whistle from way before my childhood

it didn’t whistle when I was a kid but I had uncles that assured me they had gotten a noise from it!

On this one you can see a smaller wooden whistle – this one used to work when I was small… the fat snowman is one of the more recent ones (well in the last 30 years at least, maybe i should have date stamped them)and if you look carefully top right of the picture you can see the back of a choir boy – there used to be 3 of them when I was small but they were really brittle material and 2 got broken.

My daughter’s Christmas angel 1984

And after much hilarity and scrabbling over chairs to retrieve it – my son’s artwork from playschool – a star, made out of dough and painted..

Note the embroidered tree gifts with our names on they came this year – ah -here it is at last

There were a couple of casualties this year, no tears though, they can be saved.

A tin whistle from another era – the blow pipe has completely disappeared….

But I will keep him – he’s been part of my life forever and so has this..

it is made of glass and when I was a child it always reminded me of the chocolate foil covered baubles some people had, we didn’t have them but when I looked at this one I could pretend – it has finally started to crack around the top so cannot be hung any more – and is now destined for the display cabinet.

When I was a teenager – trolls were popular and I had a pencil top one, when Toria was growing up they became popular again and when she got fed up with it – it ended up on the Christmas tree with mine from years before – here they both are sporting the same haircuts…..

Tori’s is the one with the pink hair – what’s left of it…

I could go on all night but after all its my history, I’m bound to find it fascinating. I’ll finish there and maybe do a sequel next year – until then….

It’s goodnight from him!!!!!