Florida Snowmen

Hello friends and happy Monday to you! I am officially on my Christmas break and it feels so good!

I was sick all last week with laryngitis and by the weekend I could barely talk at all. Not so good since I had shopping to finish, a Christmas party to attend, an outing with a couple friends yesterday, and a dinner last night with family. I made it through it all though and have a little more voice today than I have had in a week. It was a fun weekend despite my having no voice. Yesterday a couple friends and I went to see Dance Alive's Nutcracker Ballet. 

Source

It was as beautiful and enchanting as I remembered it to be years ago when I went with my daughter. This was their 49th year performing it. The costumes are absolutely amazing! I love theater and it had been too long since I went to a performance of any kind. I can't wait to go again!

Anywho, today I am sharing my snowman collection with you. I have been collecting snowmen for several years now. It started with the teacher snowman you see in the photo below. My Aunt Loretta gave her to me years ago when I was going to school to become a teacher. 

The other little snowmen are my students...:) They are various ones that were gifted to me or ones I bought over the years. We'll start with my new snowman tree. For a couple years I have wanted a tree just for my snowman ornaments. This year I found a great deal at Michael's on their pencil trees, so I bought 2. I'll share the other one soon. 

I love my top hat tree topper on this one. I bought it on clearance at Cracker Barrel a couple years ago in hopes that it would eventually adorn my snowman tree.

I snapped a few pictures of the tree starting at the top.

These sweet guys sit at the bottom of the tree. The one on the left is a favorite. It has springs under it's sweater and bounces up and down. So sweet. The other one is a cookie jar that was a gift from my Secret Santa at school a few years ago.

Here are a few of my favorite ornaments. The glass ball in the center, top row was a gift from my former principal several years ago when he was my Secret Santa. He passed away this year, so this one is special to me. The bottom left corner is my newest one, a gift from this year's Secret Santa. One of my all time favorite ornaments is the angel snowman in the bottom, right corner. It is stained glass and so pretty. It was also a gift from a former Secret Santa.

The rest of my collection occupies my bookshelf this year. 

A few close-ups.....

The one on the left with the red and white striped scarf is very special to me. It was a gift from my daughter, Miranda back in 2008.

I love the snow globe too!

These little guys make me smile....such happy little snowmen!

The next four were gifts from Secret Santa's over the years, I hardly ever purchase one myself. This country snow angel holds a tea light. The trees are cutouts for the light to shine through.

This metal one holds a tea light and is very pretty lit up. It is an angel too with holly leaf wings and a bird nest halo.

This one is carved wood and hand painted. The jacket, jacket, scarf, and other accessories are made of metal and hand painted. Such a pretty snowman.

This one holds three tea lights. This snow family looks like toasted marshmallows. 

I love this little bucket of "snowballs". The sign is a sweet ornament I bought several years ago.

This little cutie sits by Miranda's photo taken on the lawn at FSU when she was a student there.

So many sweet memories. My bookshelf also holds most of my vintage Christmas tree jars. They hold a variety of things. Candy, tiny pine cones, Styrofoam balls, & cinnamon sticks.

I usually only put candies in them, but this year I decided to mix things up a bit. I have a few others scattered about as well. My favorite is the pedestal one on the far left. The one on the far right is a tiny one with a wooden base. I love that one too.

That's it for today. Tomorrow I plan to share my other collection,....my gingerbread! Someday I will pass these two collections on to my children. Every year I try to talk myself out of dragging all of them out, but I just can't stand the thought of leaving them boxed up. It makes me sad. Silly I know, but I can't help it. I hope these little sweeties made you smile too. Have a wonderful Monday!

Until next time.....