24 Days of Ornaments – 15

Welcome to day fifteen of my advent calendar of ornaments. This year, rather than a Cheesy Christmas (as we did in 2020 & 2021) I’m giving you a tour of our hodge-podge of a Christmas tree – one ornament at a time until Christmas Day.

For today’s ornament there’s actually a bit of a double whammy… a 2-for-1… a BOGO…

Something Old & Something New…

The two main things in this photo are the cross-stitched ornament and the little wooden boy. While I was originally just aiming for the cross-stitch, the boy came with and rather than trying to crop him out, and since he comes with a story as well… we’ll just do both.

The story behind the cross-stitch is similar to the one from day 6, but with a slight difference. Note that it’s a heart shape (theme), predominantly in greens and oranges. Well… to fully appreciate the meaning, you’d have to go back with us to our engagement. When we got engaged in Belgium, in 1995, we visited friends in Holland (he would be my best man) and with them, we visited Paleis Het Loo, one of the royal houses of the Netherlands.

Christmas decorations were up since it was the year end and there was an abundance of green & orange … for good reason: Green for the greenery that is used in many cultures for Christmas decorating, and orange because the royal family of the Netherlands is the House of Orange-Nassau.

I loved the combination and still love it to this day. So at one point when I found this little cross-stitch pattern in green & orange, there was neither question nor hesitation. The stitched inscription at the bottom says, in French, “The love of Christ, perfect example,” and I finished it with a hand-tatted edging.

Coming back to our little wooden boy, those with keen observation may already have noticed the boy’s most easily distinguishable feature and may therefore have deduced who it is. Look at his nose. Is it coming to you?

The nose is rather long, so it can only be one character… Pinocchio.

This is another ornament that came home with us from Italy in either 2015 or 2017. One of the things that Liz was most eager to purchase was an Italian copy of the book, and it just so happened that the bookstore that we were in, also had these little Christmas tree ornaments. Again… neither question nor hesitation… five little Pinocchio ornaments came home with us and have adorned our tree each year since… another reminder of our visits to Pisa as a family.

… and that’s today’s Christmas ornament.