Christmas, Part One

I love some Christmas decorations.  Love them.  We had a considerable amount of decorations, but have doubled the size of our house since last Christmas.  Hello, obviously that means we needed to get some more decorations. 

The boys are big fans of these light up villages.  I think they're cute, but I'm not in love with them.  And Jack would be like Godzilla near this thing.  We got this one at Goodwill for $4.  It's on the dresser in our guest room, where pretty much nobody can see it but nobody can break it either.  It will have a better place when Jack won't break it.  In about 10 years when they don't like these things anymore.

I have a confession to make.  I am slightly obsessed with Christmas trees.  Including the small potted trees and mantle trees, I have thirteen trees up right now.  And I would leave them up all year if that wasn't weird.

This little tree is one of my favorites.  It's in the boys' room.  It's a Goodwill tree.  I seriously find the best stuff there.  It's like a hunt for me.  I think this one was $2.00.  It looked terrible when we bought it, but I fluffed it, put some lights on, and put it in this galvanized tub that I spray painted black about 5 years ago.  It's now on a little bench with some cute fabric over the bench, and it looks great in their room.

 This little number is in the playroom.  And has been redecorated no less than 1,238,309,235 times.  It's got quite an assortment of ornaments and about three different types of garland.  And I love it.  Jack loves to move the ornaments around, talk about where we got them, who made them, etc.  I will be sad when we take it down.

 I also have a bunch of poinsettias this year.  This is in our entry.  I have four more in our dining room, but it's also full of sewing and wrapping right now and would make a scary picture!

We did real garland on our staircase this year, and outside.  I am so happy with the way it looks.  I'm not happy to sweep up the needles so much, but I'm thrilled with how it looks.  It is exactly the look I wanted.

This is our entry tree.  It's the only tree that I did with a "theme".  It's only got silver and red ornaments on it.  It's a perfect size for this space and it makes me happy that it's the first thing you see when you walk in the front door.  It's tucked under the stairs, and it looks really cute.  And was a steal at $10 from GW.

 This is our main tree.  It's real, and it's probably close to 10 feet tall.  We cut our tree down last year.  This year we visited the Christmas tree farm at Home Depot.  The tree is enormous.  And decorated primarily only on the top three quarters of the tree.  Jack is all about some ornaments this year.  Hopefully this is the last year for that.

This is one of my favorite ornaments.  I got it four years ago at the Christmas Village.   

We got this ornament six years ago(?!) from our sweet friend Julie, and it's one of my favorites.  And always hung up high!

David and Henry painted these ornaments David's first year of speech. . . I think that would have been five years ago?  They're some of my most treasured - I remember so clearly painting these with them and how much fun they had.

David made this one in preschool with Ms. Frankie, and I think he was three in this picture.  It's the funniest picture of him.  He looks so happy, and every time I look at it I think of Ms. Frankie, who we love so much.

This is a new Christmas decoration for us this year.  And may end up being a year round decoration.  It's a framed Christmas card that my grandfather, my uncle Craig, and my dad apparently gave to my grandmother in 1962 when they bought her a new car for Christmas.  It makes me smile each time I pass it.

This is our note from Santa from last year.  It's framed in our breakfast room during Christmas.  The kids are constantly reading it and asking about it.  We'll definitely do this next year as well.

This is the advent calendar we've been using this year.  When I was little my mother had an advent calendar that had boxes you opened each day, and each box had a candy or a little present.  I've really wanted to find something similar that doesn't cost $100.  I found one at Joann's that is a house, and has 24 doors.  It was $60, but was also 60% off.  And was the last one, with one doorknob missing and one button on the roof missing.  The manager took another 30% off, and the "issues" were extremely easy fixes.  I'm so excited to use it next year - I know the boys will love it.  They've really enjoyed this Santa calendar this year, and have been great about taking turns.  Surprisingly.

Stay tuned for Christmas, Part Two!