christmas decorations

christmas is my second favorite time to decorate the house (behind fall).  

the pictures are bad (took them at night-oops), but here is a glimpse into our decorations. 

the nativity scene 

(i heart the wise men sign-found a great one online, but they wanted 

$5 for the pdf file...decided to just make one myself).  i put one of those push lights in the nativity scene, it fell, so it doesn't light up very well..boo hoo)

the wall that i can change out for the seasons.  those are turquoise blue ball ornaments in a glass container on the table.  surrounding it are scrap pieces cut from the bottom of the christmas tree.

 addison's snowman art

 these are just snowflake tree ornaments hung from a frame with no glass in it.

the christmas tree...this is the top of it.  

i went for the silver and light blue look, with mostly ball ornaments and a light blue ribbon woven around.  i also added some starfish in it to give it a beachy feel...

nice little saving tip:  we bought the 5-6 foot tree for $20 and placed it on a stepping stool to raise it about a foot...i put some green burlap and a tree skirt at the bottom and the girls decorated with some of their dolls and stuffed animals.  anyway, it saved us $10 on the tree and it looks great.

the mantle

i wanted to go for the natural look, so i used twig balls, white lights, white candles with twine, and some white/gold/silver sprigs of eucalyptus (plastic ones from michaels). 

and the stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

 to hang the stockings i used the removable hooks from 3M and bought these little frames at michaels last year-put each family member's picture in one.  

sad this year not putting kona's stocking up-RIP :(

 the advent calendar

these are made from envelopes cut in half.  each has a number on it that corresponds to the dates in december.  the envelopes are filled with a couple of verses telling the story of jesus' birth (taken from luke 2), along with an activity for the family (read a story, color a picutre, watch a christmas movie, etc).  i blogged about it last year, but i can't find it right now

merry christmas!