Like mother (and grandmother), like daughter

My mother's parents ran a duck and goose hatchery when she was a child. Sometimes the eggs were "no good" (for hatching, anyway). My grandmother used to decorate these. Then she began to order and decorate all kinds of eggs, from the tiniest quail to the largest ostrich. My brother and I both got decorated ostrich eggs as our first communion presents. My mother continued this tradition, painting flowers and little scenes directly onto blown-out eggs for Christmas ornaments. She also saves chicken egg shells (she cuts little windows out of them rather than cracking them normally) and creates tiny Christmas scenes inside of them for ornaments. My grandmother bought me a dremel tool one year which I proceed to burn out while carving a design into an ostrich egg. There is a huge curio-cabinet in my folks living room that is stuffed with dozens of fancy eggs.

All that said, it's pretty obvious where the inspiration came from when I signed up to participate in the Holiday Ornament Swap (and now with pictures).

The ornaments went out on the first and packages were just barely big enough to actually be accepted at the post office. whew! I hope that they do not have too much trouble getting to their destinations. I have received ornaments (2) from one of my swap-mates so far. So exciting! I am itching to get the rest, but I can't be judgemental since I was sending mine out at 6:00PM on the last day.

This little guys is telling the packages where to go...

I'm calling him Octo-claus and he has inspired a theoretical underwater Christmas theme to our gift wrapping this year. We shall see.