Aidan loves to cook and Little Baby loves to play house, so you put the two of them together and you have a mess, not to mention a good time. First they colored Christmas pictures, then they decorated the tree and the living area, and then they made gingerbread men and a gingerbread tree. After that they walked to my mother's house to deliver some of their cookies, came home and had hot tea together (it was about 0º outside with the wind chill factor).
I'm not a knicknack person, except for papers and books-I have reams and stacks of those. Although I do have some knicknacks and figurines, if there is no nostalgic or personal value to them, I toss them. Christmas is my one exception, but even then I find that almost everything has some memory attached to it.
One of several Christmas decorations made by my second sister, Kate (1948-2004)
G loves Christmas, knicknacks, decorations, Christmas (did I already mention that?), and dogs. So when I was at a fair a couple of years ago, I couldn't resist getting this little thing for him.
My niece and her mother (1951-2005) made this for me several years ago. It was accompanied by a beautiful wreath made of straw that was stuffed with little squares of this plaid fabric, all cut with pinking shears, and accented with gold. My niece was probably about 10 years old at the time. The wreath has long since gone, but not the ornament.
Pretty Baby had a collection of fat-bottomed soft snowmen, and she loves the Misfit Toys so much that we bought her a collection when she first moved out, then bought some for ourselves. So everything in this row reminds me of her.