Sunday, December 28, 2003
The Ornament Express
Lest you be misled by my prolific writings on matters of judaica and the diasporic tribes, please be advised that we had a very merry if rather secular christmas indeed. I won’t regale you with the whole recitation or you’d all just be showing up at my doorstep for special pancakes and kitkat disks from Poland and all manner of rum-infused cheer and beer-lubricated tidings. But I will lay out the deckings for you so that you can appreciate how gut-wrenchingly adorable was our yule.
We got two mini-trees this year and forsook all tinsel, flocking, angels, and most of the “filler” ornaments. We just stuck with the really good stuff, which we have in spades. Thus, the tree in the foyer on the yellow tonsu cabinet bore the following ornaments: blown-glass pharaoh head; “Commie Claus” (a santa-like figure molded out of glass in russia back when it was the USSR, still bearing a “made in USSR” sticker); a shiny glass red pepper; a grinning blown-glass black cat head; a cardboard cutout of a bathing beauty from the 20s; a blown glass pickle; a blown glass frog in a santa hat; a tiny wood-and-plaster replica of a bower with a nest of robin’s eggs; a purple glass globe with a pattern of sparkle garlands around it; a golden apple (not golden delicious, I learned the hard way); and a sparkly gleaming dark purple globe. Scattered among these were six blown-glass half-painted Soviet ornaments that somewhat resemble ears of corn, painted green, red and yellow.
The tree atop the big yellow media cabinet was bedecked as follows: a shiny glass green pepper; a blown-glass frog wearing a turban; a sycamore leaf made out of fine golden wire filiments; a small spherical fimo ornament with some sort of “earth goddess” imagery on it; a large blown-glass clown, garrish and rotund; a blown-glass sentrydog, looking solid and alert in a seated posture; a blown-glass crescent moon with a big happy smile on its face; a plastic trollpony (red mane); a sparkly blown-glass ice cream cone; a purple crackle-glass hand-blown globe, richly colored and textured in the victorian manner; a cardboard cut-out fish; Cornboy (another molded-glass soviet ornament, featuring a vaguely humanoid, vaguely vegetable figure with big grinning eyes and a small waistcoat over a body that looks like homuncular corn); a beautifully shaped craftsman-style amber glass ornament that comes to a slight point at the bottom (as do we all, as do we all); a cast-plastic Santa rowing a canoe full of presents; and six more varicolored Soviet corn-esque glass reflector ornaments.
In addition, this year we got two new ornaments: a really really cool purple enamel globe with indian-style wire and mirrors inset around it, and (one of my gifts to Kel) a hand-blown elephant with rampant trunk. I think I’ll call him Stampy.
It’s so freaking jolly hereabouts now that I’m starting to take the cat’s insulin. Stop by, it’s a party you’ll either never forget or you’ll never remember. This afternoon: my first assay at Bikram yoga. I intend to sweat out two cheesecakes, most of a ham, and a pony keg. Updates to follow, assuming my survival.