Sharing Christmas

My friend Megan is sponsoring a Sharing Christmas "event" on her blog! I hope you can participate, too!

Welcome to our new home! This is the Christmas card that we sent out to family & friends.

As you can see, we didn't do much outside, but some simple lighted pine garlands & I also have a Christmas candle light in each of the front windows. It looks really pretty all lit up at night. Maybe I'll add a picture of that later.

Let me preface this post by saying that this is a very new house & I can't stand the whiteness of it all, but what can I do? We won't be painting until next fall due to waiting out nail pops & such...so with that in mind, please take a look around!

Here is our foyer. Above the door are the cute little snowman corner huggers. So cute!

Walking further in, you will see the closet & basement doors. The closet door is one of my favorite things because it has the advent wreath that my mom made from needle-point when I was little. My brother and I would each take turns putting up a piece each day in December. I always had my favorites like the ballerina, the gingerbread girl & the little orphan Annie doll, while my brother liked the cat, the soldier & the gingerbread boy. Santa was ALWAYS saved to be put up on Christmas Eve and baby Jesus on Christmas day. This is one tradition that will definitely stick around for us.

As we continue through the house, we come to the living room. This is where our tree is. Decorating the tree has always been one of my favorite parts of Christmastime. The tree tells such a story for us, as we don't really have any decorations that aren't near and dear. They are all either ones that we made growing up, were given to us by our parents year-by-year growing up, or were made for me by my grandparents (my grandfather cuts them out of wood & my grandmother paints them). We also have a few that have been given to us by students, but we have to be kind of selective with those since we tend to get smaller trees and the near-and-dear ornaments always get top billing. Can you tell the trunk isn't perfectly centered in this tree? Look how off the tree-skirt looks?!
Beside the tree is our games cabinet where I display the Christmas cards. In our old house, I used to tape them to the basement door, which was right inside the doorway. I loved that set-up and have been struggling to find a new place to display them in this house. It's amazing how new and different everything seems trying to put the same Christmas items up in the new places. I guess that's just a testament to how much of creatures of habit we really are.
And don't you just love the little snowman guy hanging on the handle? He's an old-timey pull-toy. When you pull his string, he seems to say "It's Christmas! YAY!"

Now, we come to the entertainment center in the living room. This is where we keep our stockings (look closely, you can see the one for our kitty, too) and the first of my many nativity sets. This set is the Lenox China Jewels set & my MIL started giving me pieces when Gregg and I first got married. She has been continually adding to the set each Christmas & I have to admit that it is one of my most prized possessions.

Isn't it beautiful?

Also in the living room, we have another of my nativity sets. The kids at our Christmas party last week really enjoyed playing with this one. It's made of fimo or sculpey clay & I think it is so cute! Beside the nativity, you can also see the infamous Christmas tree football. G & his sister spent many a Christmas throwing the poor quilted tree around the house in perfectly-practiced spiral tosses. When we got married, G's aunt made one for him & he was so excited (really, much more excited than any grown man should be for a fabric and stuffing tree!)

As we make our way over into the kitchen, I don't have many decorations to share, but I do have four more nativity sets in this area. Two are on the kitchen/breakfast nook window sill, one is on my onion/potato bin, and the other is a magnetic set on the refrigerator. The big kids (ahem) at the party had a great time playing with these. I'll have to do a followup post later so you can see how the shepherd and a palm tree became playing pieces in a rousing round of Loaded Questions, Adult Version...
And finally, we come to my favorite part of the decorations, the dining room (aka the snowman room). As I mentioned earlier, it was quite an interesting experience this year, trying to find a new place for decorations that had already had their places in our old home for the past 3 Christmases. As I began putting things out, I realized that with all of my snowman decorations, they would all go nicely in the dining room. So, here they are!


Yet another advent calendar - this one is similar to one that G used with his sisters growing up.




I hope you enjoyed the little tour through our home! Please have a happy & safe Christmas! I'll try to make another post with pics from last weekend's Christmas party, too!