It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

I finally got tired of my 3 kiddos telling me and the hubby that we were the most un decorated, un holiday spirit house on the block! So this weekend I tackled the decorating. I am not talking one small box of decorations...oh no...we have 9 big boxes of Christmas decorations. I like to do it up big!! Each room in the whole house gets at least a touch of something Christmas in it! And I do the entire living room, family room and kitchen! I must admit that the tree is not quite done yet, but that is only cause half the lights are not working and lights fall into Mr Toadly Crafts area... and the poor man has been working all weekend. But he swears he will get to them tomorrow, since he finally gets a day off.

Here are the highlights.

I started with the front table.

I moved the "J" wreath featured in my last post to the mirror. Then I added my beloved garage sale finds, the apothecary jars. In one I put a silk poinsettia, in the other I put some small glass balls and in the other a strand of beads. I used a couple of Christmas books stacked up, to ad some height. The 3 pictures are off my babies. It was my tradition to take a picture of them on their first Christmas in the wrapping paper.

Then I added a small tree. I used this to display my charms from my last swap, which was a vintage Christmas charm swap. Last is a 6x6 page from a Christmas countdown, also from a swap.



Ah the nutcracker...

this is Big G's. He got him two years ago. He had studied and watched the Nutcracker ballet. He LOVED it! One day at the evil W store, he saw him on a shelf and begged to have him. At first I said no, we were tight on money, I wasn't even sure how Christmas was all going to come together at this point and it was $25 I didn't have. But asked again and the look on his sweet face, I caved! I could not say no to my sweet oldest son, who does so much to help me and rarely and I mean rarely asks for a special treat like this. Now, today, I am glad I caved. He still LOVES this and he will dig in the boxes until he finds it. He received another, smaller one, last year from Santa and I have a feeling Santa will bring him one this year too.

I love to get a real poinsettia every year for the house. But I always feel so guilty about spending the money on something that dies. I was not planning on getting one this year, thinking I could put that money towards stocking stuffers or something instead. But then Mr Toadly Crafty came home from work with this!(Mr Toadly Crafty works at Lowes)

You have to know he never buys me flowers! And never anything like this!! It is big, it is gorgeous! When I tried to say he shouldn't have, he said he knew I wanted one, that I was not going to buy one and he knew I would miss it...plus it was on sale for a really great price! lol! Got love the man!!

Apologizes, for the ramble post..just a few fun stories behind some of the decor, but I really should not post when I am feeling so nostalgic!!