In the Christmas Spirit-Decorating

The morning after Thanksgiving, my first words to Jim were, "Honey, could you get the boxes?" I'm so lucky he got right on it and by Friday evening we were all done decorating the house. I was teased by a few of my friends who saw my Instagram pictures announcing my plans for the day. I look at it this way, I want as much time as possible to enjoy my decorations and at least I didn't start to decorate after Halloween. 

This year decorating was a breeze because of a single step Jim & I took last year when putting everything away. I labeled the boxes. Such a simple thing to do, I don't know why we hadn't done it before. With all my boxes labeled I wasn't spending my time searching for items. I was able to move from one area to another opening one box at a time. 

My labeled boxes - ready to be emptied. I will also be filling them up again with the everyday decorating items that the Christmas decorations will be replacing for the season.

Now for my home:

Our Christmas village - it's a hodge podge of Department 56 collectibles and Mervyn's department stores houses.

My 2nd village of Clayworks candle houses. I use battery operated candles with these because of the fake snow. I don't want to start a fire.

Our mantel - I'm starting a collection of Nutcrackers. I would like to find stocking holder's that are Nutcrackers so I can have the entire mantel in just Nutcrackers.

I love snowmen and now have them in two separate spaces in my house. I love my snowman tree.

My collection of angels also expands for the season. My Jim Shore angels are always on display throughout the year and each Christmas they are joined by these ladies.

Can't have decorations without Santa. I feature my collection each year on my ledge above the dining room.

Each year we have two trees. A real one in the living room that we will get in a few weeks and this one, my favorite tree. It is located in my family room and is filled with stuffed animals and homemade ornaments. All the ornaments are one Jacob made when he was young. I'm so excited to start adding Alexa's handmade ornaments this year. 

My prayer table is transformed each holiday and becomes my Nativity table. I feature all my figures depicting Christ's birth. The tree has small nativity ornaments and we will be adding Jesse Tree ornaments each day during the Advent season. 

The reason for the season. We await the arrival of our Savior. On Christmas Eve when we return home from evening mass we will add him to our Nativity scene, until then we prepare. More on that later. 

How do you decorate for the holidays?

Until next time,

Karri

This post will be included in the Christian Home Magazine

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