Deck the halls!

I spent most of yesterday clearing out birthday party items and getting Christmas decorations (finally!) up. I have a lot of pictures from the party to catch up on but in the meantime I wanted to share a couple of quick stories of these old timey items (pictured) now in our home. :)

Growing up, I've always loved decorating our Christmas tree and looked forward to it every year. My mom collected gorgeous (and extremely breakable) ornaments year after year and I was enamored by them all. Slowly over the years I've brought out one or two I've deemed worthy to withstand my boys (and pets), but most of the glass and crystal she had, I have had to save for a rainy day.

I also inherited our childhood Christmas stockings - I'm not sure where Mom got these, but we used them every year that I can remember. I have always loved them because they are super long and stretchy - so Santa can really stuff them good with all sorts of odd shaped toys. This has come in super handy now that I'm playing the Santa role full time. ;-) I've looked high and low for an additional one since I've only had three (there were just three of us kids, but I've wanted to hang four to represent the boys, Jon and I, in our home). And I also thought it might be good to have some as replacements in case Mom ever wants them back, or heaven forbid, if they finally - POOF - disintegrate since they are ~ 40 years old! but every knitted stocking I've found always has a (usually cotton or linen) lining now, which means they are restricted and NOT stretchy.

I recently discovered a little community run thrift store where all proceeds go to Lucile Packard Children's Hospital (Callum's hospital), so I've been slowly cleaning out our garage and donating it all to them. At my most recent visit, as I was herding the boys out of the shop as quickly as I could, while also watching them like a hawk since they wanted to touch every single breakable item in there, I happened to spot, out of the corner of my eye, ONE OF OUR STOCKINGS! They had it just hanging on a bookshelf as a Christmas decoration, without any tags, but I stopped and asked anyway, Can I buy this? How much do you want for it?

So, $1 poorer, I was walking out of the store, happier than ever and super proud of my fantastic find. I finally had my fourth stocking to match our set!! Woot!!

For the last, I don't know, 10 years, I've been using the same little fake Christmas tree that my Dad got from a client of his who was throwing it away (!!!). But, last year it was finally on its last legs and I couldn't get half the lights to work anymore. :(

So this year I bought a new one and set it up last night - but since it's a tiny bit taller than the old one, my usual tree topper no longer fits in the space I use. Logan was appalled last night when he walked in and saw a bare top - "But Mom, where's the star for the top of the tree?!?" Haaaa! (Sometimes I wonder where the heck he gets these ideas) :)

So I dug into my box of decorations and pulled out this little angel that my Mom had made - OUT OF A PAPER PLATE YOU GUYS - one year, when I was probably about 8 years old (she might not realize it, but she introduced me to crafting long before I knew what crafting actually was). It took some convincing for me to get it to stay up there but it actually worked!

(Tonight I was debating whether to make my own version or keep my Mom's up there, when Logan informed me *he'd* like to make one for the tree - so stay tuned! We may have something new for the tree before Christmas is here) :)