Tumbleweed Snowmen

Christmas was always so much fun at our house.  Being Swedish added to the excitement, because lots of our traditions were based on Swedish customs mom was brought up with.  Like food.  In Sweden baking for the holidays began early in December, and no one visited a friend without being offered delicious goodies.  In our neighborhood we exchanged plates of cookies, candies, candy popcorn, pies, even gingerbread houses if we had the time to make them.  It was so much fun, and it was cool being different from everyone else.

The day after Thanksgiving mom would take out our Christmas decorations and we would fill our house with advent calendars, candles, stockings hanging over the fireplace, and a big tree in the front room.  There was a banner proclaiming "God jul och gott nytt år" (Merry Christmas and Happy New Year) and another with jul tomptens (Swedish Santas) climbing on top of each other hanging next to it.   Mom had made both of them, and she helped us paint little figurines of singing angels and other ornaments which hung on our tree.

Mom enjoyed arts and crafts and she was very talented, but the year she made the snowman for our front yard she went a little too far.  Back then people didn't put up elaborate yard decorations like they do now.  There were no blow-up snowmen or snow globes towering over front yards or upside down santas diving into chimneys on rooftops.  A few people put hard little plastic nativity scenes in their front yards, and once in awhile you'd see plastic santas with sleds on a roof, but mostly people just decorated with Christmas lights.  Then mom got the idea of how she could make a snowman for our front yard. 

One November Saturday we drove out to the desert and gathered plastic bags full of tumble weeds.  They were perfectly round, compact, stickery balls. When we got home mom put them on a piece of plastic and sprayed them with white spray paint.  It was surprising how much paint it took to make those things completely white.  When they were dry mom chose three of the best balls, stacked them on top of each other, decorated them with eyes, nose, mouth, hat and scarf, and we had the cutest snowman sitting in our front yard. 

Everyone admired our Snowman that year, and we thought mom was so clever.  But come spring, mom was not so pleased with her work of art.  Little tumble weed shoots began poking their heads up all over our front yard, and before we knew it it looked like we were starting a tumbleweed garden.  We spent hours and hours each Saturday out in that front yard pulling up those darn weeds, all spring and summer, and even the next spring as well. 

So much for tumbleweed snowmen in our front yard.  From then on mom stuck with putting up Christmas lights, and left the yard decorations to someone else.