Fa La La La La

This is, quite possibly, my last year to play a proper Santa as my, soon-to-be, 9-year-old son is starting to ask some questions of Dear Old St. Nick.  I had to share his letter with you.  It is soooo cute.

And how about this?  Every toy name has a Registration mark! I truly laughed out loud at this!  Even Christmas is registered! 

All of this cuteness has to make its way to Santa, so I pulled out the Christmas decorations specifically to find this....

Of course, it is time to start thinking about putting up the decor, so I spent all day Saturday dragging up bins and boxes and unpacking the Christmas stuff.  I think I have about 40 bins.  I know, I might be Christmas crazy.  It is a lot of work to undecorate our every day lives and redecorate with Christmas cheer.  But... it is so worth it.  Everyone gets right into the spirit of Christmas at our house.

So, the first thing we pulled out is the Letter to Santa hanger that hangs on the front door knob.  In went the list.  I hope he doesn't think of anything else.  His list is getting $$$. 

Next we found my husband's old train and the Christmas village that my son has been collecting.  We set it up under the staircase.  See it there?

 I tried to get a few motion pictures of the train going around the track.  Not exactly what I was going for, but they turned out okay.  I also added some lomo to the photos....

 My husband still has the cardboard houses and a billboard that came with the train.  Aren't they adorable?

Next I decorated my favorite part of the house... the fireplace in the formal livingroom. 

 Those little white things pn the table below are snowflake ornaments that my grandmother made.  They remind me of her, so I put them somewhere every year.

Then the railings.  I didn't do as many this year, but I did get my advent calendar up in time. It is in the kitchen by the kids' table.

I also decorated the area near the front door with a few things.  This table usually has more on it.  I have more stuff that will end up there once the trees go up.  This little vingnette is in a corner by the guest room.

This year I moved the furniture around and put this couch over in front of the window rather than the tree.  The tree will go over by the fireplace instead.  I put lights in this window and hung a wreath in front of the curtain.  The lights show through from behind the curtain and it looks really pretty at night.

The little hanging Christmas tree ornament is one of my all-time favorites and it was beaded by my aunt Gretchen.  I love it.

These are on the other side of my living room.  A collection of music boxes.  Every kid loves to play with them.

I also decorated my Hybiscus tree.  I put pears in it and a little bird who is my partridge. 

Last but not least, I did my dining room.  It is another of my favorite spots to decorate... It is almost the same as last year.  This year, however, I plan to make a table runner for the middle of the table.  I am not done with it, however. 

Now I just have to get my trees up.  With a real tree, it behoves us to put it up a week or so later than this. Otherwise it will drop a lot of needles.  I did say I was Christmas crazy, right... well, I guess this proves it... I even decorated the cat.  Poor kitty!

Next post is sure to be the trees in our bedrooms.
Have an great week and send me links in my comments to your Christmas decor so I can check it out!

Sunset

Just thought I'd share a recent sunset that I captured.  Love the colors!

Musical and Thanksgiving Decor

Whew!  It has been a crazy few months.  I volunteered to head up the costume committee for the Middle School Musical, "Alice in Wonderland, Jr."  Little did I know the committee would be me and one other person.  LOL!  So I spent the past few months making cute little costume accessories.  It really was fun!  The kids loved their costumes as long as there was some glitter on them. 

This play included the little kids from grades 3-5 also, so my 3rd grader was able to be in it.  He was the King of Hearts. The play was this weekend.  All went well and the kids put on an awesome show.

Here are a few pictures!  I know you want to see them.  :-P

Ok... so now you know why I haven't posted much.... now on to today...
I decided to move furniture around today because I have a "formal" living room which was never meant to be formal.  Nobody sits on the furniture in there.  It is kind of annoying to me.  So anyway, I decided to move the leather couch from that room to our comfy living room.  This will make room for the Christmas tree in the "formal" living room.  I love the new look of both the comfy room and the formal room.  I can't wait to put up the tree. 

So, I am going to put the tree to the left of the fire place this year.  The tables will move over beside the chairs.  I love way everything aligned in this area now.

The couch on the left was where the red chairs are in the photo above.  I love it in this room. Why didn't I think of this before? Now we will sit on it for sure!  I may need a larger coffee table now though.  LOL!

The other thing I did today was decorate my tables for Thanksgiving.  I cut some branches of red berries from my yard and used them in various arrangements around the house.  I love them!  I also painted the white pumpkins for Halloween and I love them on my Thanksgiving table.  Of course, I will need to set up another Thanksgiving table for the rest of the guests, but that will be done on the day of.

When I lived in San Diego, my boss and I took an Ikebana class together.  It was really fun and i'm glad I did.  Not because I am any expert at Ikebana... not by a long shot, but I got all of the great kinzans and floral frogs and containers, so I can sort of make the arrangements look a little like Ikebana. :-)  Here are two in my kitchen.

 Here is the one in my living room too.  Love it!

I guess that should catch you up on what I've been doing.  What about you?  Have you decorated for this holiday?  Or will you be heading to someone else's house for dinner?

Happy Thanksgiving!!!  Gobble! Gobble!

Weekend Photos in Upstate NY

We spent a lovely weekend at our friends' farm in upstate, NY.  The animals were so fun and we pressed cider and went on a hay ride.  It was a perfect day for it, as you can see!

This is not their dog, but I had to throw him in there!

This is the sunset from our house tonight.  So pretty!

Happy Fall!