A Tale of Two Nutcrackers

Last year I picked up a sweet musical nutcracker at an after-Christmas sale. Packed him away and forgot all about him till I opened up a particular box and there he was.  I put him on the end table next to a Marine nutcracker my daughter bought me a few Christmases ago.

They did not get along.  It's not that I suspected them of dueling at midnight (tho they might have, depending on your belief of hidden nutcracker lives).  They just didn't sit well together.  Tho' one is a few inches taller than the other, they seemed to constantly be competing for space against each other.  Perhaps this visual imbalance was exasperated by the fact they shared the table with my amber compote as well.  There was such tension between them that I couldn't even get a half-way decent photo of them, they all came out over exposed and blurry.

So I replaced the musical nutcracker with this sweet Victorian Christmas cat 3-D card my sister sent me a number of years ago.  It is sitting on a small gift box to add more 'presence' and looks quite at home. I believe the Marine might make a sort of mascot of it.

And where has the musical nutcracker gone to?  He has found harmony on my kitchen counter next to my plate of angels, who are also very musically inclined.  Even the colors on these pieces go together better.  So glad that they each have found their perfect place.

I hope everyone is having a blessed Christmas season. 

I am linking up with Marty at A Stroll Thru Life for Table Top Tuesday.

A Find - Santa Dessert Plates

It's been an incredibly busy past two weeks for me.  I can't believe I haven't joined in on some of the fun Holiday link parties out there. How do you all do it?  I haven't even been able to read up on many of the blogs posted. I literally just got my tree up this past Monday, altho I spent the day putting up other decorations throughout the house Sunday.  Last Saturday was mostly about a party I was helping out at and attending.  I did spend some of last Saturday morning housecleaning, anticipating having all my decorating done Sunday.  Since this includes my daughters, it became an issue when it turned out they had made other plans.  When in their minds ANYTHING started taking precedence over helping dear old Mom put up the tree, I don't know, but though they wanted to be included in doing so, it took waiting till Monday and then insisting to get them to spend that hour and a half together putting up the ornaments.

I will get the pictures up for the rest of my Christmas decorating later.  Right now I wanted to tell about my latest Goodwill find.  I've become positively addicted to stopping by the Goodwill on my way home from work.  Because I've also been putting together a small 50th birthday party for a coworker this week, I hadn't gotten there until Friday.  I will often do a quick run-through, so as not to have the family wait dinner on me, but this trip I found a set of four fun Christmas dessert plates, still in the box, for $4.  Fair enough, I grabbed those and brought them home.  I finally got a chance this morning to open up the box for a closer look today, and was delighted to find there are 3 different designs on them.

This set is called 'Santa's Ornaments' by Evermore Signatures Housewares Collection, and I don't believe it's a high-end set.  This might have been at any discount or drugstore originally, but I was thrilled to have it land on my table.  This windup Santa toy was the plate on top in the box, I assumed the plates would all have this design.

There are two of these green trimmed Santa designs in the box set.

I think this crescent shaped Santa ornament is my favorite one.  Notice how the 3 designs each have different greetings on the edge.

Bring on the fruitcake, we are ready to dessert in holiday style!

Hope everyone is enjoying their own busy and bright Christmas season.