Christmas Home Tour

This is posted late. In fact, I took down the banner to the home tour because I knew I wouldn't get to it in time. BUT I figured late is better than never, so, WELCOME, come in and see some of our Christmas decorations!

The first thing that draws the eye when you walk in the front door is the tree TREE. It's huge. And it's crooked. But it smells wonderful if you pick off a needle and crush it with your fingernail.



When we first married, we decided that we would buy only one special ornament a year, and the rest of the decorations would be things like cookies and popcorn strings, and by the time we were old we would have a wonderful tree full of meaningful ornaments.

Well, we didn't realize that as soon as we had kids, and as soon as those kids were old enough to put glue to paper and shake some glitter out of a tube we would have LOTS of ornaments. And then the SPECIAL ones would start getting dropped and broken. And the tree looks really bare if you are too busy burping babies to make popcorn strings and bake cookies to hang on the tree. So, the plan was changed a bit, and we did get some other ornaments. We STILL try to buy a new one every year, and if we go on vacation or something we try to get a Christmas ornament from there.

Here is the first one we bought, on our honeymoon to the Grand Canyon:



Here is one we got in Hawaii...I think it's my favorite so far:



This one is from Disneyland. Ahh...it takes me back to the warm family memory of buying it, "Oh, look at this wonderful shop of Breakable Victorian ornaments! DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING! Honey, could you take the kids out to buy a $5.OO orange juice from that kiosk so I can look at something besides plastic coconuts and pirate swords?"



Oh, look! Our first Christmas together..awwww...



Ahem.

Well, I was lazy this year, and The Zoo Keeper did most of the decorating. Her unique tastes are displayed throughout our home this year. Check out the Noel Pigs, all dressed up with gold ribbon taped to their pink plastic bodies:



Here is a Fall Fairy Bear, holding a sparkley pine cone on a stick, which makes it totally Christmasy:



Here is our super cool Mega Block Playmobile (Oops!) people nativity set:



Not too sure why the Angel Gabriel has a magic wand:



This camel is ready for anything:



This is festive, in a macabre sort of way:



Here is our Advent wreath. We don't use the purple and pink candles because the whole time growing up, my mom used red. I think she used red because she could never find purple and pink, but now anything but red looks wrong to me, so I'm raising another generation of kids that do it wrong. At least it does it's job of causing us to reflect on why we are celebrating Christmas in the first place, and the red candles can represent the blood Jesus shed to cover our sins.



Here are some big cans full of fudge, toffee, peanut butter fudge, and rum balls. The little village is actually candles, and they didn't do too well in storage this year, so before I put away the Christmas stuff this year, I'm going to burn them and watch the houses melt. Should be fun!


Last of all, here are the Christmas cards I have received so far:



Thanks for stopping by, and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!