Additions to the Winter Collections

Deer have always been one of my favorite Christmas images so when my daughter found a red plaid deer at Target reminiscent of the Pottery Barn deer we got many years ago, she knew we each had to have one.

A lot of the deer got moved around this year to make some room for what has clearly become a new collection – wooden trees. I bought the flat trees on the left which are from India, several years ago from, I think, a TJ Maxx or Marshalls. I bought the tiered natural cone one on the right in the back from Marianos two years ago. Last year I bought the light wooden tree on the right at Target and this year I bought the similar one on the left from the Swedish Museum gift shop. This year I also bought the dark brown one on the right, which is also from India, at a TJ Maxx. The wooden houses from Hearth and Hand at Target have been sitting on the sideboard since I got them for Christmas the first year we moved to Chicago but this winter they moved over to be with the trees and will get put away with them when we put away the winter decorations at the end of January (which will help to make some room for new Christmas gifts on the sideboard)

I was fascinated by some mollinilla whisks when I saw them for the first time on a chocolate booth at a Farmer’s Market this summer. When I saw them again in the book “Loose Parts 4” as a suggestion for an authentic classroom item, I researched them and thought about buying one but didn’t. Then when I saw them at a Mexican import pop up downtown I was tempted again but when I saw they also had a toy version, I knew that that was what I really needed. It came with some other wooden kitchen pieces and since they had a hole in the top I was able to add screw eyes and some ribbon I found in a donated bag at the museum (which was too small to be useful for museum projects) to two of them – the first wooden utensils for my kitchen ornament collection.

My Birmingham niece who coincidentally gave my daughter a mollinillo whisk this year gave me an addition to my nativity collection from FeveCollector. The accompanying information states: “This mini hand-painted nativity imported from France is a merging of two French traditions – miniaturized nativities and feves.” Feves, it goes on to explain, are tiny figurines that are made to put in a King’s Cake for Epiphany or Three King’s Day (January 6). Originally actual beans (feve is French for bean) were put in the cakes and whoever found the bean was declared King for the day. In the 1800’s the beans were replaced with small porcelain figures which started a collecting craze which continues and feves are now made of porcelain, plastic, and metal and come in all kinds of designs “everything from Harry Potter and Disney to high fashion shoes and purses”. I love the tiny nativity and immediately found a place for it on top of the china cabinet fittingly in front of the African gourd nativity we bought at the Birmingham museum one of the times we went to Birmingham to celebrate Christmas at my niece’s.