Christmas Tree Fun 2016

It's time again for my annual-ish tiny doll Christmas tree decorating post. (Which is a lot better to see than taking down the tree, that's just depressing.) It was the week before Christmas, and a week after Anna had joined our family, when She decided to pull out the famous pink box set up our little-over-a-foot-tall Christmas tree. But this year was different. This year She wanted us to help with the decorating.

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"She's opening the box! We're finally doing it!" Nessa whisper-cheered into my ear. From below the dresser on the ground, we saw She take the lid off a pink shoebox, revealing our next project inside.
And at that moment, Anna asked,
"Why is Nessa so excited? What's going on?"
"You'll see." I said with a careful smile, as we melted back into our regular positions.
Each item was pulled out of the box until Anna could tell what it was by herself. At one point she squeezed my hand in delight.
"We're decorating our own doll-sized Christmas tree?"
"You got it," I replied. "Or at least we're watching She decorate it. Though I hope we get to help out in some way."
Little did I know that we were actually going to have a huge hand in assisting She this year.

She assembled the stand and set up the tree, taking care that every branch was fanned out to place an ornament on. Everyone was content and eager to get on with the decorating but Magneto. But given his usual attitude, you probably knew that already.
"The thing looks like it was struck by lightning."
"Oh, hush," I scolded through clenched teeth. "She's doing her best."
"Only if her best is the worst." Magneto retorted.
I shoved the key-chain with my elbow while still managing to hold that plastic doll-like smile. Magneto only scowled.
Next came the Victorian Santa polystone ornaments.

These ornaments are still relatively new, and She only started using them last year in 2015, when we thought it was a good idea to decorate the tree ourselves. I don't think we'll do that again, because the tree fell on Nessa, but if that hadn't happened, we might not have met Elphaba earlier than we were supposed to.

Now that they were out of their package, we were able to see how lovely these ornaments were, even from the shelf. Each Santa was unique and beautifully painted, with different colored robes and something special to hold.

The other supplies were contained in a small box with a running cheetah on the front. Lifting the lid, we saw colored glass bulbs, tin soldiers, various plastic pictures, and the infamous tinsel. No one likes to put on the tinsel, but it looks very nice once its on the tree and we've never had a Christmas without it.

She laid out all of our decorations and sorted them into piles to show just how much was in store for our tiny doll Christmas tree this year! Once the tree skirt's velcro was fastened, She brought each one of us down to pretend to help out, much to our delight.

Steve and Sven doubled up to help out with the first step of decorating our tree, the tinsel. I didn't know the difference between tinsel and garland very well, and upon a quick Google search, I found that tinsel is meant to mimic ice with sparkly strands attached to a thread that you wrap around trees. Garland usually looks like a long strand of Christmas wreath, like berries and fir branches. But maybe I will never know the difference. (If any of you know what this horrid stuff is, please comment it to me!) As you can see from the picture, She had Sven assist Steve with putting the infamous coppery beads on the tree, but he made a mess instead. Steve was not as amused. Most everything gets caught in Sven's antlers eventually.

This year, Benny and Napoleon both got to help out to decorate our tiny doll Christmas tree. She knew that they would insist using tin soldier ornaments. These tin soldiers are not live ornaments like Nessa and Elphaba, or else we'd have a lot more nutcrackers around the house!

She thought that one of the tin soldier ornaments looked very similar to Napoleon, so she took a picture of the two of them side by side. What do you think? Are they secretly twins?

This is what the tree looked like after both the tinsel and tin soldiers were on.

Next, Nessa and Elphaba put the nameless ornaments on the tree. And by nameless, I mean that neither She nor us dolls know where these came from. They are an assortment of all sorts of things, from sleepy mice to wrapped presents to flying Santa Claus. It's a little weird, but they are the perfect size for two other ornaments. In the picture, Nessa stands back to admire her work on stop of a box lid as a stool as Elphie struggles to reach a branch.

After the nameless ornaments, the tree looked almost complete. But as you all know, we were far from done.

Loki, Magneto, and Idina had the honor of pretending to place the Victorian Santa ornaments on the tree. Idina was happy to take her time in perfecting the tree's look, and Loki used his scepter as always to hold each ornament before finding the right spot for it. Magneto did not participate as much as the other two, as seen in the above picture, as Magneto used his key-chain clasp to kick back and hang from one of the lower branches.

Unfortunately, Magneto's bout of laziness did not last long. She forced him to hold one of the green ornaments and held him up to the tree to make it looked like he was helping out a little more than he actually was.

We all know it's not Christmas until an ornament is broken! No shattered glass this year, but sadly, we are now down to fourteen Victorian Santas instead of the original fifteen.

She was able to find my favorite beaded glass snowflakes from last year! Anna got to hold one, too, which is the strawberry-colored one to my light sapphire one. Of course She had to pose us with them.

We were definitely starting to worry we wouldn't have room for the next and most important step: the bulbs and bells that the tree originally came with. And as is with tradition, Bell just had to put the tiny golden bell ornaments on the tree.

I wasn't sure if we'd have any room left on the tree after the Santa ornaments, but Bell always finds a way. So Bell pretended to flitter this way and that, examining the tree for empty spots.

Dorothy was mostly contented to hang around and watch the rest of us work as she kept spare bulbs in her basket in case She needed to put another one on.

The last touch was a square present with crinkly silver paper, which She placed under the tree herself. We used to have two other faux presents, a red and a green one, but the paper fell off ages ago, leaving only a block of foam left. And that doesn't look as nice when under a Christmas tree. Sadly, they got thrown away, but the silver one is still going strong.

The tree was almost complete! All it was missing was our big red star.

She looked immediately at Anna. Since she was the newest doll, Anna had the honor of doing the tree topper. I smiled lightly (as not to give The Code of Dolls away) at my sister as She made her hold the star to balance it on the topmost bow of our tree. Unfortunately, now that our project was finished, our Christmas tree fun had to come to an end. At least... for our human, it did. For us dolls, we still had one last thing left to do before Christmas came.

At that was to get a family picture! I insisted that each of us write our names on a piece of paper to make a sign, and then circle my handmade paper garland around it to make things look more festive. I also requested that each doll meet back again on Christmas Day just in case She got another doll.

This was a close-up of our paper. We had to give a few dolls a quick run-through on how to write, but I liked how each of our autographs were unique in the end.

I'm going to end the post here with this picture of Sven. I guess She thought that he would look nice with my paper garland draped over his antlers!

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Overall, I think both the humans and the dolls had a very successful time decorating for the upcoming season. So what about you guys? Are you anticipating Christmas Day or still caught up in things to do before then? I think I'm on both sides, as I plan to release some new updates after Christmas. Until then, stay tuned.

Getting ready for Christmas,

Queen Elsa