Our Christmas Decorations Are Up ...

Ok this update probably won't interest most of you but I am pretty much doing it for my mother which has been over here during the Christmas festivities and loved all the decorations and how big Americans do Christmas, getting started the day after Thanksgiving with putting up decorations and all ... so I thought I would show y'all what I have been up to.

This first one is of our house, well some of you would have seen last years pics and will be saying well she didn't do anything different and you would be right, the only thing I changed was the door hanger ... but still I thought it looked pretty. We should have put up the icicle lights on the outside this past weekend but it rained and it just didn't happen, those are really pretty and I do hope they will go up this coming weekend but if not, maybe we will just give it a skip this year although really they make the house at night. They take so long to put up and of course that is all Dave's job since you have to be on the roof or up high on the ladder which I so do not do ... so I am sure he will try his best to get out of it this year but maybe his daughter can twist his arm since she loves it. If they go up I will try and take a night picture but I can't promise anything since those usually don't come out too well.

There's my door hanger, you might have seen the Fall update with the Fall flowers, I am so excited about my silly door hanger because it doesn't take much creativity on my part, you just swap out flowers every new season. It is a piece from the Southern Living show I went to, I find their pieces quiet pricey but so worth it.

Below that is the other piece I got from that show, you would have seen that too in the update with Fall flowers and in front of my fireplace, just a little change come Christmas time :-)

This year we bought a new Christmas tree, I loved our old one but the lights pretty much gave up the ghost, now of course we could have strung our own lights on there but I really wanted another prelit tree so Jade and I went hunting, she was good as gold considering mom took her to a million stores to look at trees but as long as I walked the Christmas isles with her too at each store she was ok. Anyway we got this one, it's slightly bigger than our old one, this one is 7 1/2 feet tall. Unfortunately I can't get at really good picture of it with the lights on but you are going to have to do with this one ... Now I need more Christmas decorations for the tree, I buy a few more every year but I need a lot more, it's funny because I decorate the front of the tree the most but having a mirror just behind the tree doesn't help because you see all the blank spaces in the mirror, I need to work on that :-) My Snow Babies collection is coming along, Jade just bought me a new piece which we hung this weekend, I love Snow Babies, I took one or two pics of them to show those of you that don't know what they are, they are just one of the million collectible Christmas items over here, anyway I couldn't get them clear clear since I am still working out how to use this new camera of ours but I think you can make out what I am talking about.

Then this is Jades little tree which for the first time we have allowed her to put in her room, it's a 3 foot prelit tree, the one she used to decorate every year just seemed too little for her this year so Dave said I should go buy her a bigger one which of course I loved to do since I love Christmas shopping, anyway all the decorations are shatterproof and she decorated the entire tree by herself, I didn't touch it, didn't hang not one decoration and here's why ... when I was doing my tree although there was a lot to keep her busy she obviously wanted to do my tree too but me being the fusspot that I am, told her it was mommy's tree and that it was full of decorations that would break and when she was older she could help me but for now it would be better for her to do her own ... this is of course true to a certain extent, most of the ornaments are breakable and I didn't want her to drop any since I don't have a lot to start off with but of course I wanted everything in it's place to so ... when it came time for her to decorate her tree, I told here it was all hers and that she could do whatever she wanted, well when I saw she was putting all the pink stuff together and well every color clustered together I tried to tell her to spread them out and her reply was and I have no idea where she got this word from but she said 'mom this is my tree remember so why are you directing me to put my decorations on my tree ?' Is that not priceless or what ???

I have also give her my old nativity set which I have grown out of, I got a new one which isn't quiet what I wanted but it was cheap and will do for now until I find that perfect one, they are so expensive here if only I could get a good after Christmas deal on one but they are the first to go, anyway, I helped her set it up under the tree and told her that the wise men should move closer to Mary and Joseph every day, tiny steps so that on Christmas Day they will be right there at the manger, well no sooner had I told her that and she has a few Care Bear ornaments which I got her last year, she had them lined up next to the three wise men and well they are doing the walk too ... apparently they also want to see Baby Jesus, I though that was too cute, this child of mine, she is so thoughtful, I love her to death.

Anyway the tree came with lots of rules but she is so at an age that I know I can trust her so I feel comfortable letting her have that in her room and it makes her feel super special and well isn't that what parenting is all about ?

Ok now the last three are just views of stuff in our lounge for you to see ... ok now I know I am boring you half to death but I did say this was for my mom right :-) and she just loves all this stuff. I am sure you will be getting lots of December updates since there will be so much happening, in order let me see if I can list a few, I think is coming weekend we are going to drive to McAddenville which is Christmas Town USA, it's a entire small town which is lit up for the holidays, it's hard to explain but I will try and take a few pics, Jade loves it.

Then the following weekend on the Saturday Jade has breakfast with Santa which we do in our neighborhood every year. The Sunday we will take her to the Hickory Grove Baptist Church for their annual Christmas festivities including plays, rides for the kids, lot of Christmas crafts and ice skating, not of real ice but still it's fun :-)

The 11th Jade has her parents observation day at Gymnastics which should be fun and the 12th is her birthday. This year she is having a Tinkerbell party and it will be at the new Space Kidets Party Jump Zone which is another one of those inflatable play zones which she loves, we are inviting a whole bunch of kids, her entire school class since this is her last year with them, that's 20 odd kids and of course all the little ones in the road and some other good friends of ours so it's going to be a big event. We will also do cake for the kids at lunch time at school that day so it should be a very special day for her.

Then on the 18th is Jades last day at school till the new year, so that day she will do her Christmas program at school which is always fun, shame last year she had that awful ear infection and still stole the show in her class, we will have to see what happens this year :-) Then there is a few other Christmas things in the planning but I am not sure of them all so we will see and well it then won't be long and Christmas will be upon us and New Year too, I can't believe it. This is really a busy time of the year and I totally love it all, this is my absolute favorite time of the year. Can you tell ?

Anyway I am sure that is enough for now ... until next time, love to all and we miss y'all especially at these times of year :-)