Christmas Tour of Homes

This will be our last Christmas spent in this home. We're not going far, just to the house across the street. The house across the street is currently our rental property, but soon it will be our new home. There's a little more room there. The layout is better for our family. But, now that I'm trying to make sure we enjoy each and every last moment in the home in which we've lived since we were married 12 years ago, I'm finding it a little bitter sweet.

But enough of that! That's not what this post is all about!

I've enjoyed setting up Christmas a lot this year! The best part has been doing our family tree. I didn't take out my blown glass ornaments this year. It was too stressful last year, worrying about how many more of the ornaments were going to get broken. This year, we used all of the boys ornaments and family ornaments. My only rule was that the ornaments couldn't be easily breakable!We turned on Christmas music as I unpacked the Christmas boxes. The boys put on each and every ornament themselves! Even when they put 6 ornaments on 1 branch, I didn't say a word. And, I didn't go back and rearrange them. At the end, the littlest joys told me that, "This is the best Christmas ever!" I think we just may have a new tradition at our house!

I'm spending lots of time in the kitchen right now! Lots of Christmas goodies to be baked and shared! Here are two recipes I'm working on this week that you might like to try cheese straws and Holly Treats.This is the first year I've had a little tree in the kitchen. Don't know why I waited so long to indulge myself? It's such a cheerful little tree!And it's dressed with lots of mini kitchen items.I bought a set of 12 mini cookie cutters at Target for $5.00. And just tied them on the tree with little bits of ribbon.Also with that tree, I have the boys' What God Wants for Christmas nativity set.Do you have one for your children? You can find them here. (And they are on sale right now!)Last year, after Christmas, we picked up several nutcrackers for the boys' tree. Since we put all of their old ornaments on our family tree, I'm so glad we picked up new ones for the boys last year! I had to sneak in while they were sleeping to get these pictures:*Christmas storybooks are wrapped under their tree. We open one a night, and read it together as a family.

Their tree normally has white lights, but the pre-lit ones died this year. I cut them all out, and they requested colored lights. Their white light star looked a little out of place, so they opted for a Santa hat on top.
But this is what it looked like when I found it tonight...Obviously they feel free to take decorating control this year!

I love this versatile little apothecary jar. Want to see what it looked like at Halloween? If so, go here.

Speaking of my children feeling like they have decorative liberties these days, come back tomorrow and I'll share the story of this decoration. It begins with, "Well, we're not Jewish but..." See you back tomorrow for the rest of the story!