It's Begining to Look a Lot Like Christmas...

Christmas is my favorite time of the year. I love all the pretty decorations, good food, seeing family, time off school and of course - presents! I like to get presents but I especially love to give them.

I love to decorate for the holidays! I was always the one to bug my parents until they put the tree up. I decorated my tiny dorm rooms in college and I have especially enjoyed decorating my new home for Christmas. We started off by putting lights up on the house.

Well, my husband put up lights. Poor jake, it took him three days of putting up lights after work, in the dark to get it all completed. He did have help from a friend a the first day. Of course, I helped by sitting on my bum in the house watching TV. :) But it looks so good in the dark!

Well, becuase my husband did all that hard work AND was working crazy hours at his job, I surprised him by putting up the Christmas tree. That's right folks! I got it down from the attic (huge accomplishment) and put it up all by myself! Ok, putting it up was easy but man getting it down from the attic was crazy! I hate the attic! First, you are always scared you will walk off the beam and fall through the ceiling. Then there is the fact that are probably some 8-legged friends living up there. AND then there are the millions of nails sticking out from the roof that are only 5'4" off the floor when your head is 5'9" off the floor.

Anyways I got that sucker up. This tree was a hand-me-down. It was once I really great pre-lit tree from Garden Ridge. Well, now it is mostly a pre-lit tree. Several parts of the lights only came on after replacing bulbs, fuses, a little bit of wiggling and a lot of prayer. And one section will still not light up. So I just strung on a strand of lights we had. (Kind of ghetto, I know). Needless to say, I will be shopping for another tree after they all go on sale! Here is the finished product.

I'm not one of those people who decorate their tree around a theme. I like to put up ornaments from our childhood and every year we pick out an ornament. I hope to allow my children to do that someday too!

Here is the ornament from the year we got married.

Here is the ornament from last year - the year we purchased our home.

Here is one of Jake's childhood ornaments.

One from my childhood.
I enjoy all the memories that are tied to the ornaments.

Of course there are other decorations up. My wreath is one of my favorits. It is made of bells and it made a lovely sound everytime you open the door.
I actually made this one. It is a card holder. I just measured and cut some ribbon for where I wanted to hang it. (I have two hanging up. They are in the middle of three windows.) Then I made a bow out of the same ribbon and hot glued it on there. Then I took some mini clothespins and painted them silver. And I glued them on a varying distances down the ribbon. Voila!

Our stockings and holders. You can't hve a fireplace without stockings!

And of course - the mistletoe!