Christmas in the Cube

For a while I couldn't get any of my Christmas decorations at home to look decent, so I gave up and just threw a bunch of stuff in my cubicle at work. I usually try to make decorations for my cube, but around this time of year I'm too busy making gifts (which always take me about 10 times longer than I think they will). Instead, this time I just used stuff I already had on hand, which made it look a bit too commercially and cheesy, but what the heck.




To make things a bit more personalized, I added old ornaments I'd had as a kid or were given to me by former students. I put them on top of the bookshelf.




The lighthouse ornament is from my uncle, who collected U.S. lighthouse replicas and visited almost all of the originals. He passed away unexpectedly a couple of months ago, so this one is even more special to me now.




This is Clara from the Nutcracker. Her left arm used to hold the Nutcracker, but they're both long gone.



My personal favorite is one that I painted when I was about four years old. The loop at the top of her hat to hang her on the tree was broken long ago, so she doesn't really have a choice but to hang out on the sidelines.




I realize that it totally looks like a scene from the Rudolph TV special, but that's okay. I happen to love that movie. Especially this guy:

(image source)

He's welcome in my misfit toy menagerie anytime.