Tuesday, December 13, 2011

The Horse Ornament

If you are like me, your horse-crazy gene has carried over into the decorations of your house. I have equine pictures, equine sculpture, equine pillows, equine statues everywhere. I've read so many equine books, my Goodreads Page even has its own section for horse books.

This time of year, when our house looks like the Christmas hurricane has hit, filled with wrapping paper, sacks of bows, and decorations to put up, I lovingly bring out my boxes of ornaments to decorate the tree. (Ours is fresh cut, soaking up water in a stand in the garage, and we'll probably bring it inside the house later today.)

My ornaments consist of a motley collection passed down through generations, including some that my daughter made in school, some I remember hanging on our family tree when I was a child, and of course, an entire box marked "Horse Ornaments."

Here are some of my favorites:

The Rocking Horse Collection.

The White Horse Collection.


The Stained Glass Horse.

The Engraved Horse Ornaments.

One of our contributors, Natalie Reinert, even makes personalized ornaments - some with horses on them. Here's a link to her Etsy page: http://www.etsy.com/shop/nataliegallops?ref=si_shop

Do you decorate your tree, your house, and your life with horses?

Tell us about it. And Merry Christmas everyone!

10 comments:

TBDancer said...

I have many prints of horses (three are signed and numbered by C. W. Anderson, Sam Savitt, a racehorse illustrator of some note back in the day whose name escapes me ... Allen F. Something-or-other Junior, I believe), folk art pieces, an original sketch by Hope Holland who does a line of greeting cards for Bit of Britain (look her up on their website. She's fabulous--and the card The Pirouette is my OTTB, Huey, on my avatar). I have figurines and more. TONS of books. A few children's toys (some of them from my childhood) along the pot shelf above the living room (the big spaces are taken up by baskets). Would love to have a carousel horse, but that won't happen unless I win the Lotto.

No doubt when you enter my home where MY interests lie ;o)

TBDancer said...

Allen F. Brewer Jr.

Linda Benson said...

Oh, good for you, Dancer. I love C.W. Anderson and Sam Savitt, but I'm not acquainted with Allen F. Brewer, Jr. I'll have to look for his work.

Once, years ago, someone stepped into my house and noted that "every single picture in your house has a horse in it." Gulp. Guilty as charged. I have branched out over the years, though, and now have some scenery, cats, and donkeys in my pictures. *grin*

Mikey said...

Oh yess, lol, we do horses everywhere. I like to peruse the thrift stores in our lil western town this time of year, cause you can find the BEST vintage western and horse ornaments. It's really a gold mine.
Love that I'm not the only one who decorates their tree this way :)

KarenTX said...

I get my sister and niece some type of horse/western ornament every year. My sister chased cans for years, now it's the niece's turn, she does barrels, poles, breakaway roping and team roping. Love watching her do ther thing!

Alison said...

No horses on the tree! Loved your photos, Linda. I have to admit, I am a bit of a humbug at Christmas. We've had such beautiful weather, I'd much rather be riding than decorating. Except I do make lots of cookies.

Mikey I am coming to your town to buy up vintage horsey stuff. So save some for me!

TBDancer--Sam Savitt was my absolute favorite artist. When I was growing up (okay, this dates me) I read every horse book and most were illustrated by him.

Natalie Keller Reinert said...

Thanks for sharing the link to my Etsy page! I just spent two weeks curling my hand into a little shriveled claw painting horses on ornaments, hah.

My apartment is INCREDIBLY horsey. Horse show ribbons cover up the plastic frame of an ugly mirror left by a previous tenant. Photos on the wall and bookshelves of horses we've had. A collection of horse figurines in everything from plastic to bronze to stone.

Hell, I have a halter hanging off the corner of one bookcase.

Only way to decorate: horses and books.

Greenie WI said...

Oh, yes, indeedy. 80% of my tree is horses. In fact, I now have so many that I'm getting more and more picky, and some of the first ones have moved on to new homes.

I have a Peter Stone print in the living room, and every bookshelf is crammed with horse books. Sam Savitt came to my city once and I got all of my books signed. He was nice enough to sign the paperbacks, too. A whole bagful of books! What a great artist and person.

Once Upon an Equine said...

Those are fun ornaments. I didn't put horse ornaments on my tree for many, many years. I became horseless after a sad experience and I had shut horses out of my life and out of my mind for about 20 years. I love cardinals (the bird), so I was obsessed with buying cardinal ornaments and various bird ornaments for several years. Then I got a dog, and started buying dog ornaments. Well..you can guess what happened when I let horses back into my life and heart. More and more horse ornaments are galloping onto my tree every year. I feel a blog post coming on.

Linda Benson said...

Thanks for jumping in, everyone. Yes, lots of you decorate like me, with things that you like, including, in a big way, horses!

Alison - I am so envious of your good weather in December.

Greenie - signed Sam Savitt books? What treasures!

Once Upon an Equine - So glad that horses have galloped back into your life! Let me know what you think of THE GIRL WHO REMEMBERED HORSES. Sounds like that is actually you! ;-)