First new Christmas decoration for this year

I have succumbed and ended up buying a wooden automaton music box soldier to go with my other collection of German wooden Toy soldiers all of which are music boxes but each of which plays a different tune.  However they are not automatons.  This new one is. 

There are strings at the back of the soldier which make the soldier move.  His arms come up and down onto the drum, but his mouth also moves up and down as well.  It also plays most appropriately the little drummer boy.  The musical movement is in the base upon which the soldier stands.  They have other ones available and the tunes and the movements are very different. One has a staff which he moves up and down as he leads the parade.  They are all soldiers but all decorated slightly differently.

It was about 16 years ago I came across reduced wooden and music box toy soldiers which should have been about £30 apiece in The Works - I think they were about £7 apiece then.  All are different all play different Christmas tunes.   I have a passion for music boxes in any event and have quite a collection of different ones; but that is another story.  

I was particularly pleased with these initial purchases and have gone on over the years to add to my collection.  However the soldiers have to go on parade at Christmas.  I also have a musical toy soldier band with brass bells that clink and play various different Christmas tunes which is another automaton.  I always associate the Toy Soldiers with the Nutcracker Ballet which is often showed at Christmas and also a song that my Dad started to teach me on the piano called the March of the Toy Soldiers/Parade of the Tin Soldiers (if I remember correctly).

I count these sorts of decorations as modern heirlooms.

I was also looking at the Father Christmas and also the Angel ornaments which always look so splendid but are little more than a cone underneath.  the heads are all porcelain though.  

So that is my first new addition to the Christmas decoration box for this year.  I may end up with a couple of more yet however it will depend on whether they have any when I go back.  I don't want the same movements or the same music so they have to be individual and different.

I also have plans to make a lot of decorations for the tree myself.

One thing I will tell you though is that as a child I had always wanted a proper snow globe which was something that never happened more I think due to price than anything else.  My step-son went for work experience with the school he was at which was a local toy shop.  Out of that he managed to get a regular Saturday job.  That first Christmas he was in employment he saved up his pennies and bought me a snow globe.  I still have this and it is one of my most cherished decorations because he had saved up hard to buy me something that he knew I liked and had always wanted.  I could not believe it when I opened the box; needless to say there were lots of happy tears.

Do any of you have a decoration that means the world to you or have you bought a new decoration or decorations this year from your home.  Its good to share.

Catch you soon.

Pattypan

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