December Twenty Eighth - the Cleanup

Clean up, clean up

Everybody everywhere!

Clean up, clean up

Everybody do your share.

This is the song I sing with the grandkids when it's time to clean up the playroom. Even the two-year-old knows the words. When I start singing it, he starts picking up.

Christmas is over at my house. I am cleaning up. Last year I made significant changes in how I store Christmas. I had hurt my back getting Christmas put together from lugging large, heavy tubs. So to avoid that this year I packed in smaller tubs. It worked! This year I did not hurt my back, but I still wasn't happy with my storage solutions.

Then I visited At Home and saw the variety of Christmas boxes they had in stock. I bought several and then bought three more at Hobby Lobby and Home Goods. I'm using them to store my nativities and Hallmark ornaments inside the house. I was able to separate my decor more specifically and also able to use even more small tubs for the garage storage.

Headed to the garage

Fragile items staying indoors this year

I think organizing and storing Christmas is one of those things that I will keep trying to improve each year!

Christmas Countdown - 52 Weeks From Today

Merry Christmas!

December Twenty Fourth- The Reason

Tomorrow is Christmas Day! I hope you all enjoy a blessed Christmas with your friends and family. Merry Christmas!

December Twenty Third - The Nativities

I collect nativity sets. My mom collected them for years and I enjoyed hers so much I decided to start a collection of my own. I have a variety of styles and sizes, I particularly enjoy sets made of unique materials.

Here are the nativities new to my collection this year.

December Twenty Second- The Dining Room

The dining room is really just an extension of the kitchen. It sits on the other side of the kitchen island and if the flooring wasn't different, you would think it was part of the family room. It has a window and other flat surfaces, so of course, it gets decorated!

The candy counter

The table centerpiece

Other side of the centerpiece

December Twenty First- The Village

We started collecting Christmas Village pieces about 20 years ago. We added a new piece each year and I have always enjoyed displaying them. As the collection has grown, it's become difficult to fit the display into my home. I don't have a large empty space to set up tables to show them off.

This year I tried a new strategy. Our dining table has two benches. I placed the benches in our entry hall and voila! a home for our Village pieces.

This year Sunny and Thunder helped Dan set up the village. They had so much fun and did a fantastic job. They fuss over it every time they come over - adjusting the people, the trees, smoothing the "snow".

It is clear to me that I either need to stop adding to my Village collection or I need to rearrange my home to find a larger space to accommodate them for next year!

The collection overflowed to a lamp shelf

The two dining table benches just fit the entry hallway

December Nineteenth - Family Christmas

We held our family Christmas on Saturday. We always celebrate the weekend before Christmas so that the kids can spend Christmas Day with their in-laws or at their own homes.

As usual we had a blast. It is so much fun to see the kids get older each year and more into the actual celebration - not just the presents. Although, don't get me wrong, the presents rank pretty high on their lists!

Zachary and Skye

Gramps and Grammy

Katie, Gabe, Thunder, Sunny

Papa and Gigi with Sunny, Skye, Thunder

Skye and Snow

Sunny read the Birth of Christ this year

Storm listening to the story

"Hohoho, who wouldn't go?"

The Greats with Jessica and Snow enjoying the performance

I love the chaos of Christmas!

I'm not sure who was happier with the hippo - Jessica... 

... or Snow!

The Greats with all of the Grands

Dan and I with the Grands

Snow, like all of her cousins before her, was fascinated by the train

Christmas Countdown: 1 Week From Today

December Sixteenth - More Snowmen

As I stated before, I normally have a 4-ft. tall blue tree in the guest room decorated in a snowman theme. Not this year. Most of the snowman decor went to the white tree in the family room, but a few pieces made their way onto this little silver tree in the hall niche.

I purchased the "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" sign at Hobby Lobby early this summer thinking it would be perfect in the guest room. Once I realized I wasn't going to decorate that room I didn't want to miss out on using the sign, so I created this scene in the niche.

It was the first decor I put up this year and it makes me smile every time I walk by it!

December Fifteenth -The Family Room Pt 2

Yesterday I shared photos of our 9-ft tree in the family room and today I thought I'd share some of the other decor in that room.

I normally put up a blue tree in our guest room and decorate it in a Snowman theme. This year our guest room was occupied and stuffed to the gills with belongings so the blue tree stayed in the box in the garage.

The Snowman theme got moved to my new white tree in the family room. I'd been wanting a white tree and planned to decorate it in an all red Santa theme, but it worked just fine for the Snowman decor this year.

Next year things will go back to normal. Or not, either way I plan to be flexible!

We don't have a fireplace, so this is my "mantle"

This year it holds our snow globe collection

See the snowman tree topper?

The basket holds Christmas books,

the red wire basket holds warm blankets,

the coffee table shows off my Christmas peacock ornaments.

Here's the big tree with presents.