Deck the Halls with ... a Leg Lamp?

It's finally beginning to look like Christmas at The Box House, with decorations ranging from classic to kitsch, but all of it beloved and infused with special meanings to our family. So let me get you a mug of Ted's famous hot buttered rum and I'll give you a quick tour.

Ted and I drove over to The Home Depot in heavy snow showers last week to pick up this year's tree. There's nothing like trying to determine the quality of a particular specimen when everything is covered under an inch of snow, but the snow lent a festive atmosphere. We even upgraded to the $24.95 tree, still way cheaper than the traditional Chicago Christmas tree lots. So what if they spray painted parts of it green, and who cares if they might have dabbed a little extra pine fragrance on it (I'm convinced they did, but can't confirm it)

After the branches relaxed, it ended up a bit unbalanced. Oh well, I still love it. For me, a real tree is necessary. I know that for many people a fake tree is easier to put up and take down and you won't end up with needles everywhere. But I like that people have been decorating their homes with live greenery for thousands of years, brightening the winter darkness with symbols of life and fertility.

The top of the tree is a mixture of old and new. The star is from my first Christmas with Ted; the elf climbing it is one of several from my childhood.

Mom added the Santa. He's a bit bedraggled, and the tree we got this year is a bit small for him, but he is older than I am and has been on every one of her trees. It wouldn't be a proper Christmas tree without him.

The wooden elf ornament next to Santa is one my mom painted when I was little. We still have the entire set that she picked up at a craft store. Turns out, Ted's mom had painted the same set when he was a kid!

Other favorite ornaments include my first stocking, a bootie knit by my grandma:

And this "new favorite," which my Mom found on etsy.com:

There is a smaller tree in the dining room, our "Candy Tree," decorated with gold foil chocolate coins, truffles and more. Angie the Angel sits at the top of the tree; mom's had her out every Christmas since she was a little girl.

Even the spirit house Ted and I picked up in Thailand a few years ago gets the holiday treatment.

Look inside, and you'll see a tiny Christmas tree and presents. My mom made these when I was eight or so for our doll house Christmas rooms.


Our fireplace is a big ol' fake one. We have arguments about whether we should just take it out, as it would expand our decorating possibilities, or leave it because it's an original house feature. The cast iron electric fireplace dates to the 1920s and produces light, but no heat. Seamus has decided its one of his favorite new perches, but he's getting heavy, and I'm afraid he may break the "realistic" plastic logs."

We took down the usual odds and ends that seem to find their way up on the mantle and put up my Fontanini navity and a small selection of Mom's nutcracker collection.

But the most over-the-top thing we have is the Leg Lamp, which sits proudly in our living room window:

If you haven't seen A Christmas Story with Peter Billingsley, you'll think we're crazy. But it's one of my favorite Christmas movies, and a leg lamp just like this one features prominently, as does a Red Ryder BB rifle. (We were ecstatic, by the way, when we found a Red Ryder BB rifle in the basement earlier this year.)

I think that's going to be it for the decorations this year, but I do have a pot of wassail simmering upstairs, and we'll greet the fruit trees in the backyard with it later tonight for the Winter Solstice. I'll post the recipe for that tomorrow--cider, wine, and brandy! What could be yummier?

Atlas Homewares, Jonathan Fong Style, and a Bit of Mod Podge

I found some terrific knobs on clearance this weekend to use on the dresser I found in the alley. Normally $6.30 from the Atlas Homeswares Signature Scroll collection, with the clearance and an extra coupon, I paid only $1.79 a piece at Lowes.

The ones I got are coppery, not pewter, but you get the idea.

I'm thinking of decoupaging the dresser. Who cares if I haven't cracked open a jar of Mod Podge since the fifth grade? Ted hates the idea and I don't blame him; most of those projects we made in grade school looked exactly like magazine pictures awkwardly glued to a box. I did a bit of surfing online to find some good examples and stumbled upon Jonathan Fong's Web site.

Look at these kitchen cabinets! He used posters of Warhol's work. Here's the before:

Now, I'm not stylish enough to go for an entire kitchen...

...or even a door, such as these examples I found in an article in the Seattle Times, but I think I can do a dresser, no?

Here's one I liked from Plaid Enterprises:

Start small, right?

And then I might tackle this cat condo project, also by Jonathan Fong:

What Do a Gaggle of Goddesses, an Antique Admiral TV, and a Doorknob Have in Common?

After a year, I had given up hope of ever finding what I did with the knobs to my 1940s Admiral television. For well over a year we've been looking at the partially assembled television, despairing that we'd ever locate the one-of-a-kind knobs. I was convinced they were lost forever. But tonight, while clearing out boxes in the basement in preparation of removing the last bit of skanky ceiling board, I found them, hurray! They were packed away with an assortment of odds and ends from our condo kitchen. Why I thought that would be a good box to have packed them in, I don't know.

Isn't it a beauty? It's dated 1948, if I recall correctly, and stands about waist high. I won the TV on eBay and drove all the way over to the Quad Cities to pick it up, which is about three hours one way from Chicago. The cabinet is made of a single piece of bakelite, so there was no way I was going to trust that to a shipping company. I read somewhere that it was the largest piece of bakelite ever cast, at least up to that time. Mom and I gave the TV to my dad for his birthday. After he passed away, I ended up with it. It now sits in our dining room, next to the sideboard. It was working pretty well until a couple of years ago, when the picture disappeared. One of these days, I need to take it in for a proper restoration.

Other goodies in the box include a doorknob from my bedroom of one of my first apartments in Chicago. Yes, I admit it--I stole it. I was a foolish stunt by a 24-year-old. The apartment was this kinda run-down three flat circa 1910 located in the Southport corridor before it became cool to live there, and the landlord was a bit of a jerk. Okay, a major jerk. I know I should feel guilty for going to Ace Hardware and buying a plain doorknob to swap it out with, but I don't really. (They later gutted the house completely.) I'll probably use it on my office door at The Box House, if I can get it to fit.

But this is what really makes me smile! My collection of goddess magnets (and a coupla gods) that I got on clearance from Sacred Source, a great little online store with all sorts of figurines from world mythology and religion.

And that picture of Ted? It's the first one I ever saw of him. Would you believe we met on Match.com seven years ago this month? Well, we started corresponding then, and met a month later. Remind me to tell that story sometime...

What's Up? Chicken Butt.

Silly kittens often sit in their food dish while drinking their water. They are oh-so-tolerant of having their butts cleaned of chicken gravy, but they must've still had a faint odor of Fancy Feast about them, as Maggie suddenly lost all uneasiness around them and came in for a good ol' sniff. I think it's what finally broke the ice, as dog and kittens are fast becoming friends now--although they won't sit still long enough for me to photograph all three of them!

Are y'all getting tired of kitten pictures yet?

Bella and Seamus, aka Silent Bob--when he meows, no sound comes out!