Oddities

The next fine ornament is from the carvers club Christmas gift exchange. They had the idea at one meeting, to bring a bunch of yams which they then carved into Santa faces. Then they hung them in a dark dry place for a month or two. No telling what shape they take as they dry and shrivel up! After the shriveling was done, they painted whatever they got. This is one of the finished products.




The next ornaments are rather battered by time. Some of the paint has chipped off over the years, which makes sense if you consider they are older than I am. When my parents down-sized their Christmas tree a few years ago, they decided to get rid of many of their ornaments. These are 3 of those ornaments. As a child, they had 3 ornaments that were great favorites of mine. One was the red bell on the left. The other 2 went to someone else, but were a Santa figure and a bird with a soft brushy tail.

The last ornament for today is meant as a tree ornament though I don't hang it on the tree. When we lived in Alaska, we got this wooden moose which gets filled with candy and then dispenses the candy into the bucket at the rear. It is called a 'poop moose'. The grandchildren like to see what is in it when they come to visit. We took the moose with us when we went on our mission. He lived on my desk at the mission office. The missionaries loved to see what I had in him. Sometimes it was jelly bellies, but another great favorite was chocolate-covered raisins. When our son-in-law went off to Afghanistan, the moose was patriotically decorated. When it was time for us to return home from our mission, the moose came with us, much to the disappointment of many missionaries. Some of the missionaries thought he needed a name tag, so that he when he acquired the little sign that says, "Elder Moose". Now he is back home on top of our piano, but for Christmas a while back, the little ornament under him came here to live. It is a bit difficult to see in the picture, but there under the poop moose, is a tiny outhouse, with a moose sitting inside! A poop moose and a pooping moose?