Christmas decorations from around the world

Tomorrow is Twelfth Night, the feast of Epiphany, when Christmas decorations are traditionally taken down and put away for another year. We have our own family tradition that wherever we go in the world, we try to bring back a decoration to hang on our tree. To me these Christmas baubles contain travelling memories, brought out to remind us of the places we’ve visited over the years. Here are some of my favourites;

The decorations above are from my husband’s trip to Texas on a military exchange with the Texas National Guard. He loves the US, especially Texas although I’ve never been to the US at all. The one on the left represents the bluebonnet which is the state flower of Texas, and I shouldn’t need to explain the cowboy and cowgirl – Yeeha!

Closer to home, the decoration (above left) from the Buckingham Palace Gift shop, brings back memories of the Garden party I attended with my husband this summer and I returned a month later with my son to do the guided tour of the palace, which is only open to the public for two months in the summer. And that goggle eye cat (above right) caught my eye on a stall at the Christmas Market by the South Bank this year.

The decorations (above left) are from my trip to Ecuador in October 2007, when I spent my last day in Quito doing the rounds of the gift shops in Mariscal Sucre to do all my Christmas shopping, including the dough lady in traditional costume and the hollowed out egg with the nativity scene. The sequin decorations (above right) were bought from a lady from the Phillipines at a craft fair, who was sewing on all the sequins laboriously by hand.

Back in Europe our fat Christmas tree fairy (above left) always makes me smile – I think she’s had too much Christmas pudding over the years, but she looks very jolly. My husband bought her back from Germany. And the Pere Noel came from Paris – he wears his tricoleur with pride.

The glass bon-bons (above left) are from Murano in Venice, where we camped on the mainland one summer and took day trips in to Venice. I dragged my family round in the burning heat, so that I could buy my coloured glass chandelier – see it here. We were all wilting by the end. But we wrapped up warm when we went to Stockholm for a city break one year and brought back these painted wooden decorations. As I recall they were from the gift shop outside the Skansen Open air museum, where we had a nice lunch of Swedish meatballs with dill.

So now my Christmas decorations will be tucked away for another year, but hopefully to be joined next Christmas with some new ones from all the places we visit in 2009.

Related Posts
My travels on a plate
My travelling year in 2008

See my photos of souvenirs from my travels on Flickr

This article is originally published at Heatheronhertravels.com

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