Our Christmas Decorations

With me talking about Christmas and looking forward to it, I figured I could show you my decorations.

I got a cleaning bug last night, so I figured nows the time for pictures! (my family room's normally a wreck... Feel no pressure to "keep up" with me here.) (although I will be making an effort to keep the room cleaner for baby Bronson, who has the crazy idea he's old enough to crawl! Or at least give it his all! I'm not ready!!)

Anyway  I'm still typing on a phone, so forgive my more briefness.

Here's my entryway. My mom gave me this garland last year. It's so fun having stairs to decorate. I love having this up there. (And still so glad I painted the stairs again!)

My entryway dresser. (The bottom of my tiny prelit tree has given out.)

Blake's parents brought this beautiful nativity back from Isreal for us! It's olive wood. And so lovely.

The stair garland was so long, I had enough to cut off and use for this mantle.

(More current and messy below)

This sweet little nativity, nested in the middle, was sent to me by my sweet grandma. 

Off in my kitchen, I have this Christmas church on the side table. Jasmine pretends to tuck her pretend fairies into bed there every night. I hear 1,000 of them live in the steeple. (So cute.)

I added one silver sparkly ornament to my wreath, across the room.

Over on my wood countertop I added this winter scene to out cake dome. (I saw something similar on Pinterest, but inside something more official. But I figured I have a cake dome, lets use it.)

Off in the family room is our tree.

I gotta be honest, decorating with kids is not my forte. I kinda wanted to run away from home that day....so much noise and confusion. So hard to accomplish anything. Too many hands on one simple task. Too many questions (where does this go?) that I haven't had time to figure out yet. (Technically this is my first Christmas decorating here. Year one was crazy as we JUST bought the 'needs so much work' house. Year two I was rendered un-alive by that pregnancy. So Other than the tree I put nothing up.  I didn't  know where I want anything yet this year .) By the end of the day I was literally shakey from all the overload. 

When we were on the tree I was hating how messy it was turning out.

But in true mom fashion, I've now gotten endeared to how cute it is that the red ornaments can't find their way to the top.

I'm not sure I can bring myself to fix them.

Why is being a mom such a strong polarity of feelings? 

Anyway:

The mantle in here has our stockings.

I set oversized ornaments between my jars.

And our kid Nativity.

 You may see that Cinderella in her carriage (and at other times numerous other lovely ladies and a spars few gentlemen) make like wise men and shepherds and drop by.

And that's out Christmas cheer this year. (I might make a couple more things, but we will see.)

I plan to leave our stuff up until at least the new year.

And after that I still want to leave up some lights or somethings in a less Christmas and more just winter coziness kind of way. I'm not up for zero winter prettiness just because we flip our calendar.