Feeling nostalgic

This year is one of only two in 13 years that hubby and I have not returned to our childhood home to spend Christmas with our extended families. I was feeling OK about it, excited even, as I now have the opportunity to plan my own menu for a small gathering on Christmas Day......but I have just seen a few images around that are bringing back memories of "home" (yes, I still call it home after more than a decade).

Gnome book - both my dad and Opa had this book and I loved it as a child.....there is one particularly gruesome picture in it of a troll and a gnome....and a nearly nude-shot of a female gnome that I thought was so racy as a kid (!!!!). Book spotted over at A Cup of Jo.

This fireplace.....where do I start? It has so many memories for me. My family has one exactly the same. It began life in my Oma and Opa's lounge room and my Oma would heat a kettle on the hotplate. It has gorgeous little windows to watch the flames and I love the chrome coal-bar at the front and the curved legs it sits on. It also has a side-door (not visible in this pic) that you can use to place any extra-long logs in the firebox. When my family built our own home in the early 1990's, my grandparents replaced their fire with a new one, and my dad and I restored their old one......it took some elbow-grease with a wire brush, a coat of pot-black, new fire-bricks and a new flue, but it still goes today. Our beautiful family home was bought by my cousin a few years ago, and he still lives there with his family, so I occasionally get to visit my most special childhood home. Hopefully I will get there in the next couple of months and take some photos to share my memories. Image found here.

All the Christmas posts with pine cones and pine trees has me missing the tree hunt we would have as children each December. Our home was nearly surrounded by pine forests and our block of land used to have a plantation also. There are still a few stands of pines from the 1970's standing, and there are always some young pines to choose for our Christmas tree. It was always a joke that dad and us kids would come back, dragging a tree that ended up being 12 ft tall and barely able to fit through the french doors.....even with fairly generous ceilings, the tip would be bent over and dad would have to chop a couple of feet off to make it fit in the house. Which reminds me, I need to take some photos of our Christmas tree....post to come in next couple of days :).