I hope your Christmas was wonderful! We had a lovely day with our families. These are the last two trees, which I didn't have time to write about before Christmas. That's what happens when you have more trees than sense days. :) It makes me sad to think that all the beautiful decorations will be packed away next weekend after having been up since the day after Thanksgiving. I think that the house looks its best during the holidays with the sparkles and pretty colors and, comparatively, it always looks a little dreary the beginning of January.
These two trees have a lot in common since they are mostly decorated with teacher gift ornaments.
For thirty years, my classroom had a penguin theme. We had penguin valances (in seasonal patterns which I changed each quarter), a penguin clock, penguin rug, penguin pillow and throws (for the reading corner), penguin puzzles, penguin wall-hangings, etc. I think I have every children's penguin book ever published. The shelves were lined with hundreds of stuffed penguins in varying sizes and I also had a nice collection of glass penguin figurines and snow globes. Throughout the school, I was known as the "penguin teacher" and I was very fortunate to acquire a precious collection of ornaments, over my career, from my sweet families. I have enough to healthily decorate a 7.5 foot tree with them.
I can honestly tell you that I think of the child who gifted me with the ornament when I hang it on the tree...although I had to eventually begin tagging them.
Truly, penguin ornaments were very tough to locate early in my career, so I am pleased to also have "teacher" ornaments for the tree with colored lights. That same pine also has some of my childhood ornaments on it.
The lighthouse ornaments, with blinking beacons, are some of the gifts which our dear neighbor has given us each year.
I hope you're having at least a little time to catch your breath following Christmas and the weekend. We are all stuck inside here since it's done nothing but rain since very early Saturday morning. As a result, our area has historic and damaging flood levels. Flash floods have caused soggy basements, floating cars and, worst of all, some loss of lives throughout the region. Stay dry and enjoy your day.