Happy December! I’ve been really busy this last week trying to get all the Christmas decorations set up and ready. It’s so much more fun this year playing around with bigger spaces and spreading everything out. The last few years I’ve barely even put any decorations out because there simply wasn’t any room. I love having a house! Here is our main Christmas tree fully loaded with most of our many, many ornaments. This nook of the house was finished last night after I sewed up a Christmas bunting I’ve been slowly working on for awhile. I love how it turned out!
Here’s the other half of the living room! I found that gold vintage metal tree at a holiday barn sale a couple of weeks ago. The stockings are a little bit oversized. 🙂 Normally I hang them on the wall for decoration. I have smaller stockings we usually use, but they don’t have any loops on them. I might sew some on and switch them so we can see the candle fireplace a little better.
I was so excited to have a mantle where I could finally display my Nativity this year. My grandma painted a set of these for all the grandchildren when we were little and gave them to our parents to give to us when we got married. I love having this beautiful token to get out every year and remember her by. I also love seeing evidence of creativity and artistic talent in an older generation of my family.
As always, Twinkle the Elf showed up this morning. I almost hesitate to even post anything about him anymore because there are such elf haters out there! I don’t understand the passionate hatred so many people hold for Elf on the Shelf. I figure it’s a choice every family decides if they want to take part in or not and to each his own! We don’t use Twinkle as a threatening tool, telling the boys he’s always watching and reporting back to Santa. It’s just a really fun tradition that my kids absolutely love and look forward to every day before Christmas. I don’t see the harm in that!
Twinkle always brings powdered sugar donuts the first day he shows up. Shepard is guessing that it will take him four hours to eat his own donut because he has such a tiny mouth.
Of course today is the day Caden slept in. Shepard and I were waiting at least half an hour for him to wake up. Surprisingly he was quite patient about waiting for his donuts while he was musing over why Twinkle wears red, how often he goes back to the North Pole, how he can hold a paint brush to make toys, and why he doesn’t want to stay at our house all year.
I finally had to wake Caden up. He hasn’t been sleeping that well lately while fighting a bad cough. He’s on an antibiotic slowly getting better. It seems to be a really bad year for coughs all over the place.
They finally could open the Advent calendar! Shepard’s been yelling at me for days to fill it up with candy. When he realized last night that I finally did then he yelled at me because he wanted it early and I shouldn’t have put candy in it until today!
Back to decorations! My in-laws gave us another big, but skinny tree to put in our family room. I didn’t think I’d ever be one of those multi-tree households, but it’s kind of great! I love where our main tree is because I spend the most time in there. But it’s really fun having a tree in the room where we eat and play legos and watch tv too. So festive!
The Advent calendar Greg gave me our first married Christmas, the snow globe he gave me our first Christmas together, and a musical tree egg.
My Christmas Annie nook. One made by me, the rest by some other makers.
Christmas pillows. The patchwork one was my project for myself last year. I love patchwork things, but HATE making them. I’m the worst at lining things up!
My favorite giant Annie and new elf addition this year.
My favorite vintage decorations.
Small “tree” and delightful smelling cinnamon candles that don’t even need to be lit to blast scent in our bedroom.
Caden’s tree in his room. He went for the minimalist look.
And finally, Shepard’s tree. He claimed all the ornaments with snow on them or family pictures. He took great care in his ornament placements too and has a story to tell about why each one is where it is. Love that kid.
That’s about it! I’m so excited to truly enjoy all the festive rooms while we make new Christmas memories the first year at our house!
