A Grandma Shirley Christmas Special.

I have a very quirky blended family, I guess I could say. After my Dad passed away my Mom and I moved into  a new home with my Grandparents. This was during my 8th grade year I believe, and right around Christmas time. Initially, I was very reluctant to embrace how different my living circumstances were from others..but now I am so grateful and thankful for how bizarre and funny my family is. It's different..but I don't think I'd change anything about it.

For a little Christmas treat..here are some things that have happened since I have been home.

1) We have no real Christmas Tree. Prior to coming home, my Mother kept telling me she'd decorated a tree and that 'it was really great'...'it was really cute. very very cute."

And in my mother's cat lady style aesthetic ..it is.

Here is what I came home to see: A florescent pink Christmas tree (sparkly, of course) covered in bells and giant plastic snowflake garland. The absolute cherry atop this masterpiece is the ceramic 'angelballerina' that crowns our blessed tree.


Not an angel. Not a ballerina. A ballerina with angel wings. Angelballerina.

There is a ceramic ballerina with wings on top of the Christmas tree. It's like a Yuletide version of 'The Black Swan.'


The entire tree is about 2 feet tall....but some masterpieces are petite. The Mona Lisa isn't very big, I hear.

 Example A: Ours is nowhere near as stately...but you get an idea.

2) My Grandma loves snow men. She loves Micky Mouse, too...but she REALLY loves snow men.  They have definitely come to serve as a more... prominent motif in our holiday decorating this year.

She came in while I was watching TV and told me (so excitedly) that she'd made a "Christmas Village" in the kitchen. In Grandma's definition..."Christmas Village" meant taking 32 (I counted) ceramic snowmen figurines and arranging them on the dinner table.


 My dinner table is a family reunion for 32 ceramic snowmen.

Grandma is so proud of her Christmas village. I am too.

Example B: Imagine this..but with no buildings or snow or trees and only snowmen figures. On a table. and you have Grandma Shirley's Christmas village.

Anyways, Those are yet another two cute and quirky things that happened here in the Sawyer/Buchanan house. I expect many more things will come over this break.

Wishing you a happy holiday filled with Angelballerinas and Christmas Villages,

Suz