Behnke’s Nurseries, Beltsville, Maryland (December 14, 2012) and Riverdale Holiday Market, Riverdale Park, Maryland (December 15, 2012)

This past Saturday was my birthday and it would be my first one since my husband abruptly walked out on me with no warning on December 28, 2011. My husband has largely avoided talking to me since then and I received no acknowledgement from him about my birthday this year, which is a stark contrast to my birthday last year (when my husband gave me both a new iPod Touch and a new iPad and he took me to this wonderful French restaurant for dinner). So I decided to spend this past weekend just going out in an effort to enjoy my birthday and forget about my husband.

Late Friday afternoon I decided to visit the Christmas shop at Behnke’s Nurseries in Beltsville, Maryland. This is the nursery that’s located closest to my home. Compared to Homestead Gardens and Valley View Farms, the Behnke’s Christmas shop is small but there were still some interesting decorations like the moose in the photo below.

The next two photos are of pointsettias in unusual colors and covered in glitter. No, they are not natural. The colors and glitter were painted on the leaves. I’m not sure how I feel about these plants. On the one hand, they are definitely unnatural. On the other hand, they do look pretty.

Behnke’s had a bunch of miniature plants on sale in a variety of decorative pots. One could choose plants like tiny pointsettias and miniature orchids. I thought they were cute.

I purchased one thing at Behnke’s. I previouly saw this during my visit to Valley View Farms but I didn’t buy it on that trip because I was about to purchase two hedgehog ornaments and a small nativity and I didn’t think I had enough money to purchase anything else. It’s a smoker shaped like a gingerbread house that comes with a supply of gingerbread-scented incense. I thought it was cute. I was also attracted to the fact that, for once, it’s not imported from China. This cottage is one of a series of cottages made by a U.S. based company called Ginger Cottages. (The link has lots of eye candy.) What was even sweeter was that the smoker originally had a $29.95 price tag but I got it on sale for $21.

The next day was my birthday and I decided to make a brief appearance at the Riverdale Holiday Market because two of my friends were selling their crafts at that festival. (I had the opportunity to sell my stuff there this year but I didn’t because this market is usually held outdoors in December, a time of the year when the weather in the Baltimore-Washington, DC area can be pretty iffy at best and I just didn’t want to sign up only to have it be extremely cold or snowing on that day.) The weather also happened to be nice and sunny with temperatures in the low 60’s so I decided to go there. As I walked over to the market, I saw this University of Maryland Physics Department van that had an illustration that made me think of the cover of an early 1970’s Pink Floyd album.

I visited my friends’ booths and I managed to purchase a couple of things. One was a Thank You card that was made by Archelaus, whose cards features the kind of designs that one doesn’t usually find on a Hallmark card. The other was this really cute and small nativity scene that was made in Peru. It’s really unique and the photos below show why I was enchanted with this.

It provides a nice companion piece to this other nativity scene made from wood in China I purchased recently at Valley View Farms.

Both nativity scenes are now displayed on the coffee table under my four-foot tall tree in the living room.

Homestead Gardens, Davidsonville, Maryland, November 30, 2012

Over the past few months my estranged husband was coming to the home, letting himself in, and taking boxes of stuff while I was attending my regular weekly support group meeting for people who are separated or divorced. He recently sent the boxes back that contained my stuff that had been co-mingled with his stuff. Among the returned boxes were the ones that contained our Christmas decorations and ornaments. Recently I’ve engaged in my own downsizing of my own holiday tradition. While we were together we amassed around five boxes of decorations and ornaments. Some of them were ones that we’ve owned since we were children or were ones that had been in our families for decades. Others were ones that were given to us as Christmas presents by others. Then there were the ones that were impulse buys on my part or the ones that various local businesses gave away. (I once had two small ornaments that CVS gave away to its customers for two years back in the 1990’s.)

For the past several years my husband and I struggled with putting up Christmas ornaments because we had more ornaments than tree space. Typically we decorated until the branches become overburdened with ornaments and we grew tired so we just put the extra ornaments away in storage. As I looked through the returned boxes I found that I only noticed three missing items that my husband probably took. One was a stocking with his name that my husband’s grandmother knitted for him when he was born. Another was a painted white wood reindeer ornament personalized with his name. (I don’t remember if his mother or my parents gave that one to him as a present.) The third was a bunch of these really pretty ceramic bells that once belonged to my husband’s mother and they made a delicate twinkling sound when shaken.

There may have been others he took as well but we had so many ornaments that I didn’t notice any others missing besides the three that I noticed. In any case, my husband left me with the lion’s share of the ornaments and decorations. I decided that I would take advantage of the current chaos in my personal life by downsizing my Christmas decorations. First, I went to Target where I purchased a four-foot artificial tree with tiny LED lights already installed for only $25. I was able to erect that tree on my living room coffee table in about 15 minutes or less. Then I went through the five boxes ornaments and made the hard decision of what I wanted to keep and what I wanted to unload. It took awhile but I managed to go down from five boxes of ornaments to one box. I donated the excess ornaments and decorations to the American Rescue Workers truck that comes around my neighborhood twice a month.

After I downsized my ornament collection, I felt much less burdened. My only regret is that my husband and I didn’t set down to do this years ago. Thanks to my decluttering efforts, I was able to decorate the home (mainly the living room coffee table) in under two hours. I have only a wooden Mickey Mouse dressed as Santa Claus hanging on the front door to signal to the general public that I’m celebrating Christmas this year. My family were never into doing extensive outdoor lights (aside from having a few electric candles in the windows) and my husband and I weren’t into doing such outdoor displays either so it was no big deal for me to have only one token outdoor decoration. At least my electrical bill in January will be lower than those in my neighborhood who insist on having extensive outdoor light displays. (LOL!)

After I purchased the tree I noticed that the purple spire tree topper that we had used in previous years looked out of scale and very top heavy on the new small tree. I decided to donate that spire and shop for a new tree topper. As a child my family had used stars and angels as tree toppers. My husband used to tell me that his family (especially on his mother’s side) had always used a spire to top the Christmas tree. I purchased the purple spire a few years ago because I thought it was pretty and I thought my husband would be pleased with it. My husband didn’t take that spire so it was up to me to get rid of it. I decided to get a small tree topper and I thought that an angel would be nice.

So I made the trek to Homestead Gardens, a family-owned nursery in Davidsonville, Maryland that has an incredibly fancy Christmas shop that even includes a model train layout. I took some photos to show how fancy this Christmas shop really is.

Naturally this shop had all kinds of ornaments available. These beer-themed ornaments are the kind of ones that I would’ve been tempted to buy for my husband as a surprise Christmas present had he not walked out on me three days after last Christmas.

I’ve always loved looking at Department 56 buildings. I’ve never purchased one for myself partly because they are a bit on the pricey side and partly because I don’t have the space in my home to do a really awesome miniature village layout. But I like looking at them on display in the stores.

The next two photos show these ornaments that I’ve never seen before. They are painted glass ornaments with actual doll-like hair.

Homestead Gardens had a wide array of these Christmas caroling dolls.

This next ornament is one that only a dentist will love.

This next photo shows the most elaborate nativity scene I’ve seen in recent years. It not only reconstructs the stable on the night that Jesus was born but also the greater town of Bethelehem, including local market stalls and villagers going about their personal businesses. Anyone with enough money can purchase this set and erect it in his/her own home.

As its name implies, Homestead Gardens is a nursery. I saw plenty of pointsettias and Christmas cacti in a variety of colors on sale.

Homestead Gardens had these cute ivy-covered topiary shaped like animals that were the size of houseplants.

This next photo shows a cabbage that was covered in paint and glitter. Even though it looked pretty, I still felt that it seemed wrong and unnatural.

The major high point of Homestead Gardens’ annual Christmas shop is this giant train layout featuring several Lionel model trains going past villages consisting of Department 56 buildings. One employee responsible for making sure that the model trains ran properly was dressed as a railroad engineer. This layout was so big that one photo really can’t caputre the entire thing. For real model train enthusiasts who want to their own train layouts, Homestead Gardens sells Lionel train sets and related accessories.

I saw this interesting light display in the cashiers area. (LOL!)

While I was heading out to my car, I saw this really interesting twilight scene that included some interesting cloud effects.

I saw this really cool sunset as I was driving along Route 50 on the way home.

I found the perfect tree topper at Homestead Gardens. It was an angel who has a very delicate doll-like face.

Here is what she looks like when lit.

This angel may be small but she is perfectly scaled in size with my new small Christmas tree.