Thursday, December 22, 2011

Christmas, lite

Last Christmas, end-of-pregnancy nesting instincts compounded my excitement to have Christmas in our own home for the first time and I decorated our house like I was born in the North Pole. Here are some photos from my first phase of decorating, then I continued adding green garland and other embellishments even after December 25th had passed.

This year, without any nesting hormones or holiday hosting, my Christmas decorating drive has ebbed to an all-time low. As I’ve dreaded the packing that an early 2012 move might bring, we didn’t even take our Christmas boxes down from the attic, much less put up a tree. I tell myself that it will make seeing Nika and Papi’s grand tree all the more magical for Luke and Eleanor on Christmas Eve. And that less packing and disorganization in January would be better for everyone. Plus it’s nice not supervising two curious kiddos amidst the perils of a cord and ornament-laden tree!

Lest you think I’m a complete Scrooge-mom, we did add a few seasonal touches to our home. First we made a darling Christmas canvas and hung it over the fireplace.

Luke layered green handprints in a tree shape, and then I painted a trunk at the bottom. I tried to let him put the potato star stamp on top, but that resulted in the smudge on the left. So after wiping that off as best I could, Mommy got to stamp the star on top of the tree. Smile 

Luke has also been busy crafting ornaments this month. I searched for a giftable craft that he could accomplish “by Luke self” as he says sometimes. These wreath ornaments made by stringing buttons on a wire seemed like just the ticket. I ordered some button lots on ebay, and Luke did a marvelous job carefully stringing each button in the order he wished on the wire. Then we bent the wire into a circle, twisted it off, and tied a bow on top. Here he is (still looking sickly from the eye/sinus infection that he has shared with our entire family) showing off some of his masterpieces. They look so happy hanging above our table!

Of course, I couldn’t pass up Christmas cards as an easy, personal source of Christmas décor. So I strung ours up above the windows, along with some green crepe paper that Luke found in a craft box.

Finally, I couldn’t resist one new Christmas purchase. I loved these glitzy trees in Target, and popped them up on our cabinet along with some candles and a plant.

Here’s a zoomed-out view that also shows a green Christmas canvas I printed and a clearance reindeer that Erik soldered back together for me.

Other Christmas staples that I don’t have pictured include our Christmas pillow covers (seen here), Erik working from home in his Santa hat, and our ‘Little People’ nativity playset. Well, it’s off  to elf-duty for me! Merry Christmas!!

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