Almost Christmas!

Less than two weeks to go, wow!






I have had some requests to post our Christmas decorations here for you to see - if you have been at our house any Christmas - then you know each room is decorated. (Well, except the toy room and Karisa's - she has a tree, but the older she gets the less motivated she is to put it up!)



Here are just a few taken from the family room - if I have time, I will try to get some done of the dining room and kitchen. This isn't all that is in the room, but some of my favorite snippets:)


This is a huge cross-stitched Santa - complete with both our family's names on his list. Serg made it about 15 years ago, but we can tell it wasn't finished then, as the list ends with my niece Lexi and sister in law Cari (if you joined the family after then, you are outta luck, sorry Makenzie!)

And to prove it isn't just the girls in my family that are crafty, along with Serg's cross-stitch here is a bowl that my brother in law, Kurt, carved for us! It is out every season, at Christmas it holds a mix of potpurri. The silver tree is from Tonya - granted it saw better days when it was new and owned by someone else, but I love vintage style ornaments - the handkerchief I got from a garage sale - $1!
These are just under the Santa hanging - my ode to the 50's - this year I got some tiny colored rice lights to string in the garland. Colored lights seemed right to go with the bright Japanese figurines that I have picked up here and there. But, Serg and Karisa picked the pattern - I wanted flash on and flash off - but instead my colored lights flash rather psycho!

Our tree is one of the shortest ones we have had. It is real - we do have a fake one in the kitchen. When we got the house with the cathedral ceilings I knew I would want tall trees! This is just over 9 feet, but one year we had one that you could touch the angel on the top from my loft office! The picture window on the side has a large metal nativity. When the sun shines in the morning, it casts a huge nativity shadow on the opposite wall.

This is a mish-mash of things - my grandmother's nativity and an wire angel I have from when I was a child started the theme, which includes Japanese glitter houses, pink trees and minature nativities - some with their original boxes.

Along with my 50's figurines is a fun ode to the 70's - a 7up bottle tree - on heavy canvas with jewels as decorations. Love this piece too, a gift a few years ago from Tonya.