If there’s one aspect of Christmas that I am exceptionally passionate about, it’s the tree. Growing up in a secular household, the tree was Christmas. In my family, our trees are the subject of intense discussion and considerable effort.
Going back several generations, we’ve had the custom of including a wooden snow scene/Santa’s workshop at the base of each tree. Each of these is made to look like a large redwood trunk, and the decoration thereof takes as much time as the tree. This year, at long last, my wife and I got our own tree trunk, courtesy of my wood-working cousin Dean. And though I’d seen many snow scenes done in my childhood, it is only now — at my forty-first Christmas on this planet — that I find myself with one of my very own.
Pictures of the tree, the snow scene, and the Santa shop are up here. If you look at my eyes here, you can see how happy this makes me.
“Going back several generations, we’ve had the custom of including a wooden snow scene/Santa’s workshop at the base of each tree.”
I like the wooden snow scene/Santa’s workshop. I never seen or heard of them before. Is it a family tradition only, or is it also a custom from a certain region of the US or part of the world?
It goes back on my maternal grandmother’s German side, but oddly enough, my German cousins today don’t have these scenes nor have they had them in living memory. It may have been something my great-great grandfather came up with on his own.
I understand your Christmas tree tradition entirely (although I am from a coloured lights family…). Your Santa’s workshop is lovely! However, I am particularly fond of the photo that includes the elephant in the corner. He looks like he wants to join the festivities, too!
I like the one where you’re concentrating so intensely on ornament placement that your tongue is sticking out. I used to think people only did that in books (Lucy does it in Voyage of the Dawn Treader, for instance).
I always stick my tongue out when I’m concentrating and not speaking.