Christmas Things

Thought I would post a few Christmas decorations I put up this year. I didn't spend a dime on anything new except for some lights when we discovered half our tree lights were out. I was pretty proud of myself. In fact I have a whole box of Christmas stuff I would really like to get rid of. Trying to simplify...

I was inspired by a friends table decorations at our church brunch so I went
around my house and started collecting things. There are red jingle
bells in the blue mason jar and cranberries in the clear jar.

I've been looking for a cute way to display all our Christmas cards. I saw this on Pinterest
and made it my own.  I used a large embroidery hoop ($3.79 at Hobby Lobby) and
clothes pins (you can get a large pack for $1 at Dollar Tree). I hot glued the clothes pins
about every 2 inches rotating end that clips to the inside and out. It worked great!

Our Melissa & Doug Nativity Set.  Brendan's mom got this for us last year in hopes
we would have a little one to enjoy it this year.  Little did she know I had my
suspicions we would! I can't wait till Ellie is old enough for us to talk about
the Nativity and share the story of Christ's birth with her.

Brendan's grandmother passed away when he was a freshman in college. She had
started to make all her grandkids a tree skirt for when they had families. She had
all the pieces cut out, but not assembled. Brendan's mom found the pieces and sewed
it all together and this is the first year we got to use it.  Very special to us!

And the best Christmas present of all.....