24 Days of Ornaments – 21

Welcome to day twenty-one of my advent calendar of ornaments. This year, rather than 2020 & 2021’s Cheesy Christmas, it’s our hodge-podge of a Christmas tree that’s front and center… I’m giving you a tour of our tree, one ornament at a time, until Christmas Day.

Today’s ornament is embarrassingly simple…

Another Bit of Italy?

I don’t know why we never thought of it before. Actually, even if someone had thought about it or mentioned it to me… I probably would’ve poo-pooed the idea as being too banal, too common, too unfinished. For you see, today’s ornament is a simply styrofoam ball, hanging on a thread.

Oh I’d seen styrofoam balls used as the beginning of a tree-ornament project before. I had a great aunt in California who made the most beautiful Christmas ornaments using pins, sequins and beads… all stuck into little styrofoam balls… but really, the styrofoam wasn’t visible… it was hidden; hidden by the interesting, pretty stuff.

I mean really… who wants to look at a plain old white styrofoam ball!?

Apparently I do… but it took a trip to Italy to realize it.

A Town called Peccioli

We were staying in a little spot near Terriciola, and right acros the little Tuscan valley was the hilltop village of Peccioli.

During the daytime, we’d been up there to visit the outdoor market, got some fresh mandarins, herbs and meat for supper. Later in the week however, we went back up for a stroll at night and made our way to the town square, at the center of which was a huge tree, decorated very simply with lights and hanging snowballs.

Snowballs… How original! How’d they do that? … get a little closer and… “Well pass by!” (as my grandma would say)… simple styrofoam balls!

I quite loved the look and it was just. so. simple! So when we got back to France, I trudged out to find me some at the local craft store. Now our tree has some hanging snowballs as well. It’s really about as close as we come to snowballs here, but from a bit of a distance, it’s just a nice little addition to the tree. (Note the alabaster heart from Volterra as well – day 14)

… and that’s today’s Christmas ornament.

What do you think?
Are you #TeamStyrofoamSnowball or #MostDefinitelyNot?
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