After the thanksgiving weekend cleanup, Dan and I hauled our plastic bins of holiday decor here from the storage unit. We have always had a large tree with clear lights in the living room. Last year I bought a new prelit tree that was the more slender style.
I appreciate that it takes up less space in the living room. This is our more tradtitional tree. It has a crocheted angel on top, and a quilted tree skirt that we bought at a craft fair when we were first married. Every year we put our popcorn string on this tree. Our first "married" Christmas, Dan and I popped popcorn with an airpopper, and strung the popcorn. We repeatedly poked our fingers with the needles and vowed never to repeat the activity. Because the corn was air popped, it didn't get rancid. This popcorn string is going on year 27 of use. There are blank spaces of thread where each of our childen as toddlers were tempted to taste the popcorn, and took a bite. This year, Finn has been particularly hard on the popcorn string, ornaments, and tree as a whole, which surprises us, because he didn't behave that way with the tree last year during his first Christmas with us. This tree also has my dark red, wooden cranberry bead strings on it, crocheted snowflakes, and all of Barb and Rob's handmade Christmas ornaments from the 10 years they gave those. It has all the ornaments our children made when they were small, and gave to us as gifts! These are some of my favorites:
Matt, from first grade, a little chalkboard made with craft sticks, black construction paper, miniature chalk and eraser!
I had a particularly hard time choosing Zach's, because he has so many homemade ornaments from school and boy scouts...here's a reindeer made from a christmas light, pipe cleaner, and googly eyes!
This is my favorite of Katie's, which she made in 4th grade. She painted Santa on a cinnamon stick. I enlarged, so you could see the detail of his face.
I was also torn for which one to show of Emily's. Here is a brown paper grocery bag gingerbread man, made in first grade!
Joe's...from kindergarten...
Kids are the only ones to gift with creative ornaments. Sometimes Dave and Faye send us a homemade card, and I hand this pressed flower ornament from them each year on our tree.
Other standard decorations include our needlepoint stockings...This year I ordered one for Matthew, and hope to replace the original 7 with stockings for grandchildren. Below that is a Fischer Price nativity. I think it is always important to have a nativity kids can play with, as that is one of my favorite memories as a child.
Here are two nativities we have that Joe plays with...
These are next to our skinny tree with colored lights in the dining room. I took the photo at night, so I guess it's hard to see the details.
Our outdoor decor is fairly consistant also...2 clear light topiary trees by the front door. A lighted cedar swag rope above the front steps, with a red bow, and a lighted nativity set with Mary, Joseph, and Jesus in front of our porch that projects a light of light in our otherwise fairly dark block.
In the backyard, Frosty the snowman lights our path between the garage and the house. Frosty cost $10.97 at Kmart, long ago, and it just makes me happy! Dan says he has spent three times that much replacing the light and wiring for Frosty, which I sometimes convince him to leave up until the snow is gone/February, which ever comes first. I just love the light Frosty brings to the back yard.
This year, we are trying something new. We bought 6 inch shiny outdoor ornaments. We thought to hang them on the tree in the front, but now have decided to hang them on the bush next to Frosty in the back. Perhaps even some outdoor colored lights? There is an outlet on the garage! That's another post.
No comments:
Post a Comment