As an atheist, I love decorating for the holidays with homemade dolls.
My great aunts and uncles lived together in a 10-bedroom, A-frame house on Lake Charlevoix, Michigan. Three sisters and their husbands, they were childless. They all worked in the insurance industry.
The three-story house had hidden passageways and rooms for the Underground Railroad. We kids loved playing hide-and-seek.
"The dolls are our children," they said. The men carved the doll faces and bodies, and made furniture. The women made clothes and accessories. Their dolls are in the Michigan State Children's Museum.
They always made two of each doll. One Whistler's Mother doll went to the president of France. It is in the Louvre Museum.
When I was five, my grandmother enrolled the four oldest girl cousins in the International Doll Club. Each Christmas, we received a doll from a different country, in native dress with a story, stamp and coin.
These dolls are 75 to 100 years old. I treasure them.
I do the Yule tree with secular ornaments. It's so not about Christianity at this point that I just go with it. In a couple of moves I lost a nice set of decorations. Years ago for reasons I didn't understand, Kmart had a Nativity for which you could buy Roman Legionairs. I understand the animals, and what I presume are wise men, but the legionairs were just odd. It also had a tent for the wise men. I bought the stuff that wasn't Nativity (no stable, Mary, Joseph, or Jesus) and had wise men, animals, and Roman Legionairs in a tent that I told everyone were my Saturnalia decorations.
I stopped decorating 25 yrs ago when I came out as an atheist. I felt it was being hypocritical to do so and continue funding corporations idea of the holiday. Mucho dinero dollars.
I do make gifts for the children in my family. Arugumi styled animals and babies wearing animal costumes. I call them "just for the heck of it" presents.
I also donate several of these toys to foster care programs, which makes me happy.
I do enjoy food served at Thanksgiving.
It's the xians who are hypocritical stealing our pagan traditions and solstice semi-annual celestial celebrations. ...just nix the alleged vaginal virgin birthed alleged baby gawds talk&creche lies and dirty donkey stable "scenes" and hang the American Atheist carbon element ORBITS on your Solstice Conifer and sing Jingle Bells and Jingle Bell Rock 100% secular songs
I love to decorate for any holiday! I enjoy a festive house no matter what season or reason. For my family christmas is about Santa Claus and family. It is a secular holiday, no nativity scenes have ever been displayed (or owned, for that matter). I have some lovely crystal trees, and I decorate with evergreen and holly on my mantel. I have a real christmas tree, with a Santa on top, and decorated with hand-tatted (it's similar to knitting, only tiny string, very intricate) snowflakes that Great Grandma made over the years. It's all about Santa and family, and looking welcoming and happy! And I can offer a holiday greeting of Merry christmas without feeling that I have broken an "atheist oath" - or whatever! It is what we make of it!
Your decorated home sounds warm, inviting and beautiful. Please post photos of your intricate tatted snowflakes. They sound exquisite! I love homemade decorations. I'd love to see them.
@LiterateHiker - I did post a photo of the snowflake! Thank you for your kind words!
I tried ratting years ago. As per directions, I ended up with a doilly, (kind of silly looking since I was learning tatting). Then it occurred to me that I was going to end up with a bunch of dollies and intricate lace. My tastes lean toward Modern. What was I going to do with these things? I panicked and put it down.
@PiercianTruth - "ratting" or "tatting"?!? Just checking!
@Rustee tatting, auto correct helped me (I just typed it in again, and it helped, again)
I could not care less about decorating for the holidays. Just more cleaning and dusting.
I dust the dolls with an artist fan brush before putting them away in boxes. It's a lovely, annual ritual for me.
I grew up visiting my great aunts and uncles in Charlevoix. They loved us kids. It was wonderful to spend time with them.
Brings back great memories.
@LiterateHiker Sounds lovely, having those happy memories to remember.
Pretty normal for decorations but we get a live tree and put it on the front deck outside the living room. After the holidays we plant it.
Hello Riley, thanks for sharing the photo of your decorated tree - it is beautiful!
Very cool. As a minimalist, I do no decorations other than the cards I receive.
As per request, here is a photo of the snowflakes made by great grandma Audrey (Audrey Larie, for whom I am partly named: Sandra Larie!). They were "tatted" - which is a technique for handcrafting a particularly durable lace from a series of knots and loops.
I decorate my christmas tree with snowflakes, and mostly they are GG Audrey's snowflakes, so they are extra special to me. At some point I will pass them on to my children and their spouses!
Exquisite! It is beautiful. Thank you for posting a photo of the handmade snowflake.
Gorgeous. They are a nice remembrance
I loved Christmas trees as a child. The lights and the fragrance. This year I don't have a tree, but I have pine boughs, pine cones, and candles. I have solar light strings up all year on the porch, and in the garden and inside. I simmer orange peels and spices on the stove. My Christmas cactus is in bloom and there is a bank of poinsettias in the window. The sofa is layered in red patterned quilts and plaid blankets. Most of this stuff can stay through the entire winter.
Sounds lovely. It must smell wonderful in your home. Your home is a sanctuary that comforts and pleases people.
My alleged "christmas cactus" have always bloomed earlier in the year. I refer to them as my Halloween or Thanksgiving cactus!!
I don't do any additional decorating for the holidays but there are a few Christmas items that I leave up in my house all year around.
I have been living on my own for 14 yrs. I am a single guy with no visitors. Which I can never figure out why people don't want to stop by. Needless to say, I don't see the need to decorate for any reason. Now if I had company that comes over on a regular basis, I might decorate for the hoildays.
I don't, although I may brush away the fur and spider webs.
Have not been wearing a dress since 64 years ago when my sister Kay played xian mom with me as her "baby sister" she collects dolls and still loves me despite my world famous Atheism since 1981. ...solstice conifer without alleged angelic ornaments for decades until my family cats got sick from pine needle ingestion
I was never into playing with dolls (I preferred real animals or even humans!), yet my older sister often cajoled me into playing with dolls with her. Until I gave her "Chatty Cathy" doll a haircut. She never asked me to play with dolls after that. She also reminds me of that occasionally - laughing now, thankfully. Perhaps you should've given her dress a 'make-over'?!? hehe!
@Rustee I was 2....I do remember my grandmother playing with me 27 months old. ...she never smiled in family photos but I remember her smiles. ...mom showed me her photos years later and I said that's not how I remember her
Your dolls are in immaculate shape! What a collection.
Thank you. I have had the international dolls since age 5. They are in their original boxes from different countries. My mother gave me a few the Miller family dolls at age 21.
My brother Lee got their Bozo the Clown doll. Sister Lynne got a young girl artist painting at an easel.
The homemade dolls from our great aunts and uncles were divided between nine cousins. Because I live the farthest away in Washington State, I wasn't there when the dolls were divided up. I got the dolls nobody else wanted. But I love them, especially the Pilgrim girl, Whistler's Mother and the young lady going to a ball.
And the old couple with heads made from nuts. See the pipe cleaner cat?
With an artist fan brush, I gently whisk off any dust before lovingly nestling them in boxes wrapped in tissue paper.
Kathleen
@LiterateHiker I'm missing the pipe cleaner cat somehow
Very cool. I wonder what the antiques roadshow people would say