Decorating for Christmas

When I was growing up, my Grandma Rochie (maternal grandma) was a huge lover of Christmas. She passed when I was nine, but, even at that age, she passed that love on to me. I absolutely adore everything about Christmas. I love the decorations. I love the family get-togethers. I love giving and receiving presents. I love baking cookies and other goodies. I love the carols. I love Christmas cards. I love everything!!!

We have tried to get our Christmas tree from a tree farm in our area for the last two years. The farm has been closed, however. We ended up going to Prairie Gardens to get our tree both years. While our tree is beautiful, getting a real tree from a store isn't as fun as getting one from a tree farm. We decided that next year (or maybe after Christmas this year depending on clearance sales), we will be purchasing a faux tree for a few years. When Gideon and any future siblings are a little older, we will start getting real trees again. I think picking out a real tree from a tree farm will be an awesome family activity once Gideon is older... and hopefully the tree farms will be back in business by then.

Anyway, here are pictures of our tree before and after decorating it:

I love colored lights on my Christmas tree! We didn't put on as many ornaments as we usually do because we had to go very light on the bottom third of the tree so Gideon doesn't pull them all off and break them. We put up the ones that are most important to us up top along with some which aren't as breakable along the bottom. We decorated the tree while Gideon napped after church on Sunday. When he woke up, he was mesmerized by it and kept saying "wow wow wow" over and over again. It's safe to say he loves it!

He loves this little house ornament of Pete's.
Pete said he also loved this ornament as a kid.

We also put up my Grandma Rochie's Christmas village. I inherited this way back when I moved out of my parents' house about fifteen years ago. My boyfriend back then wasn't very keen on me putting it up so I never did. The first year Pete and I were married, when we lived in Farmer City, we put it out and I absolutely adored it. We have added a few of our own elements to it over the years, but this is only the second time we've had it out since I've owned it. I'm glad to have a little bit of my grandma's spirit back in my home during the holiday season.

The entire Christmas village which takes up two shelves on our built in bookshelf.

The left side of the Christmas village.

The middle section of the Christmas village.
Yes, that is an antique Christmas tree!

The right side of the Christmas village.

We even went outside and put Christmas lights across the peak of our house this year. We decorated outside (the same way) the first Christmas we were here. Last year, we had a little baby and no time to get outside and hang up the lights. I'm so glad we were able to put them out this year. Gideon absolutely loves all the lights.

Over the years, I have also obtained a small collection of random Christmas decorations, too. Since the Christmas village took up a couple of shelves on our bookshelf, I was limited with where I could put these other decorations. I put a little Micky Mouse snow globe and a stuffed reindeer by our baby picture of Gideon and the memorial luminaries and candles for the twins. Then I put my small collection of antique snowmen (love, love, love!) on our TV stand back as far as they could go so little hands can't get them. We have two tables in our house; one in the dining room and one in the kitchen. The final picture is of the table in our kitchen which has a hanging scented snowlady, a candle with the letter C on it, and an angel candle holder.

I have put out a couple of other things that aren't pictured, but they're also not as exciting. So, those are our decorations this holiday season. What do you think? Do you love decorating for the holiday too?