A Hodge-Podge of Christmas

I've been wanting to write a post about decorating for Christmas, and then these last two night we've been to two Christmas parties. So, I thought I would just put it all together.

I love decorating for Christmas. This is definitely inherited from my mother. She always decorated our house, and had so much fun doing it. She was never the uptight kind of mom that had things just so, that you were not allowed to touch. She had us help do everything. I remember most the huge glitter snowflakes that hung from the ceiling of our family room in Pleasanton. We always had a huge bushy tree, sometimes wider than it was tall. We all decorated it together. There was every kind of ornament imaginable on those trees - homemade paper Santas to crystal angels. I used to love sitting in the living room, where the tree was, with all the lights off and watch the tree twinkle. The other night after we finally had finished decorating our tree, Anna took me by the hand and said, "come on Mom, let's go watch our tree." It was a very sweet moment for me. The other one was watching my Mom help Anna put ornaments on our tree the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

These are some of my decorations:

I finally hung these shelves that I bought last summer at Ikea. I think they turned out really nice. They show off David's Santa collection. These are some, but not all of our advent calendars. It is Anna's favorite thing to do every morning. These are some of our nativity sets. The first is from Israel, and my mother made the Christmas goose. the silver (but not real silver) and the pottery ones are from Mexico. The music box was made by my father. David does these incredible latch hooks. Here are the two Christmas ones he has done. I forgot to take a picture of the Santa rug he made. He has incredible patience. He is working on a huge Christmas tree one right now. This is my dining room table and hutch that we got this last year from a lady that was moving. We got a fantastic deal, and they fit perfect in the dining room. This is our latest purchase (I know what you're thinking, where does she store this, who in their right mind would buy more), but I had a spot in mind, and I couldn't resist. Finally, here is our tree. I love the red bows. I got them on 90% off sale last year at JoAnn's. Last night we went to a Christmas party that my friend puts together for the Down Syndrome Association of the Mid Columbia. It is an incredible group of people, and I'm glad we get to participate and occassionally help out. I got to read stories at the party while David took Anna around to the various craft tables and to visit Santa. She loved it. She did every craft. One craft was making a snow man out of toothpick, marshmallows and candy. She made a great one with David's help. At the end of the party she was back at that table. She had one marshmallow and was skewering it with an incredible number of toothpicks. When I asked her what she was making she growled, and said, a toothpick monster! (duh, mom). She was very proud of it. Unfortunately I forgot my camera, but here are some pictures at home of the snowman and accompanying monster. Tonight we went to our ward Christmas party. They always do Santa first (which is great), then we have a big dinner, then these guys in our ward get together and play live music for everyone to listen too, and all the kids (which in our ward is a lot!) come up in front of the stage and dance like crazy. It is a great night, and very relaxing. Doesn't Anna look so big? That skirt is getting a little short so it makes her legs look really long. Have a fun holiday season!

~C