Home for Christmas

I'm connecting up with Kelly's Korner's Show Us Your Life this week to show y'all our Christmas decorations for 2011. Since CJ is a very active, curious toddler, I've tried to make our decorations "family friendly" and kept some of our nicer, more breakable decorations in the boxes this year! ;)

I splurged a little on an "advent" present for CJ, but thought that this purchase was worth it! A Nativity he can play with. And Baby Jesus lights up and plays music. His favorites are the "king"s (wise men) and putting his Lightning McQueen car in the manger with Jesus.

Here is our completely decorated Charlie Brown Tree. We don't have a "theme" like some families, it's more of a hodge-podge, but every ornament has sentimental meaning. We have big colored bulbs because that is what I grew up with and LOVE them! Our ornaments are a mixture of beautiful beaded ones that JT's grandmother made, ones that were special to me when I was little, and ones that we've gathered together through our various travels and 6.5 years of marriage. The breakable and meaningful ones are on the top half of the tree, and on the bottom are ones we don't mind CJ playing with and potentially breaking. I love that we have a window at this new house for our tree to sit in front of, especially since we didn't do outdoor lights this year...at least we don't look TOTALLY like the neighborhood Scrooge.

Next to our tree, is our fireplace. Don't worry about a fire hazard, because we don't use our fireplace (due to safety!) This "coffee table" is the perfect size to sit in front of it (aka block CJ from it) year round, and I thought our nativity looked great there too. The pieces are plastic, so even when CJ does play with it, it's no big deal.

Since this fireplace doesn't have a mantle, our stockings are laying on the floor beneath the table holding the nativity. I'm excited because next year we can have cute monogrammed matching stockings because our family will be complete. :)
On our bar, my favorite picture frame of our family commemorating Christmas through the years. Mickey and Minnie and some desert plates (all out of reach for small hands!)
Our Christmas table setting in the dining room. (We normally eat in the kitchen so this is just for decoration!)
A little weak on the outdoor decorations this year. I'm waiting to get some more lights until they go on sale after the holidays! So it will be bigger and better next year! ;) We couldn't find our wreath, so the snowman will have to do until next year. I replaced our USC/Clemson football flag with this penguin one that CJ picked out. And please don't mind the ghettofabulous note above the mailbox. Just reminding our postmaster who lives here so they STOP giving us other people's mail.
I LOVE this table right next to our front door when you walk in! We have QUITE the Mr. Potato Head collection, so it's fun dressing a couple of them up for Christmas! CJ loves playing with them and changing them up too. And I really love seeing the pictures of BOTH :) of our kids. CJ with Santa, and "All I want for Christmas is you" Baby #2.
This tree hangs on the inside of our front door. It is special because my Mom made it for us. She is so talented and used to sew dresses for my sister and me for Easter and Christmas when we were little. And I love having this handmade piece to hang up every year.
I've gotten a new snow globe every year we've been married. This year I put them up (out of reach) on our TV cabinet. Each one has some sort of special meaning for that year, where we were or what happened. I so enjoy unwrapping them and reflecting on those memories each Christmas season.
This year we are displaying our cards on our giant cabinets in our kitchen! Makes me so happy seeing them all!

This is our Christmas card album. Every year after hanging our cards, I take all the photos and photo cards and put them in this album. It's fun looking back year after year at how families change and grow!

I label the year and who is pictured. And under our card, I put where we were.
We have two nativities sitting on our dresser in our bedroom. This hand carved one I've had for a long time.
And this ceramic one we got after our first Christmas (on sale of course!) when we needed more decorations.
Our guest bathroom is usually a "beach" theme, but I try to incorporate Christmas during the holiday season!
Hope you enjoyed this tour of our Christmas home decor. And I just realized I never took pictures of our house post move in (because I am always waiting to have the house "perfect"). That is clearly never going to happen, but at this point I'll probably just wait until we can show y'all the new nursery too! ;)