Christmas Decorating

Every year I get excited when the week of Thanksgiving because it means that I can start decorating for Christmas the day after. Some people get up early for all the Black Friday sales, but I would rather stay at home and decorate my house.  Those sales can wait because I have decorating to do.  Once the house is decorated, I will feel like doing my Christmas shopping.
Seeing the nativity set

My favorite Christmas decoration, the nativity set that my uncle carved.

 up for Christmas helps to remember what CHRISTmas is all about and why we are celebrating anyways.  It is so easy to get caught up in the excitement of getting and giving gifts that we forget what its all about. My uncle carved this Nativity set for me last Christmas and this will be the first year that it will be displayed. I just love the way this looks and that it isn't so commercialized like all the other sets I've seen.  My uncle really did a nice job!



Decorated milk jug

One of the easiest Christmas decoration that I made this year was taking an old milk can and sprucing it up. :) Someone down the road has a stand in their front yard with a bunch of evergreen tips for $5.  Cannot beat that price. 

This literally took me 5 minutes to make, which included trying to find a knife in the garage to cut the twine that held the tips together. Once I had the evergreen tips in the milk can, I dug through the rest of my Christmas decorations and found the purple and green glittery pieces that were purchased from Michael's.  I am happy to have all this glitter outside this year since the glitter somehow found its way over everything last year when they were stuck in the Christmas tree. 

The last piece that really set the milk can off was the Joy sign!  This is such a welcoming piece on our front step and I'm so excited as to how it turned out.

I had so much left over from the bundle of evergreen tips, that I was able to decorate the old window pane that I've been trying to figure out what to do with. This one is still being worked on but I hope to have it finished by the weekend. I think I need some inspiration from Pinterest to help me out.



Since there was a lack of snow in Minnesota last winter, we are dreaming of a white Christmas this year. We also bought snowmobiles last year and never got to use them. What a shame. We are hoping that we get to use them this year; however, now we need to find a babysitter.....Good thing my parents live close and want plenty of grandbaby time. :)

Here is another Pinterest find! I took an old cabinet door, sanded the varnish off, and made it into a chalkboard. Once the cabinet was painted, I sanded some of the paint off so that I could make this look worn. Once the paint was sanded, I took stain and applied it where I sanded with a q-tip.

It really is a lot of fun to change the design, quote, or picture on the chalkboard.  We have this hanging in our entryway, so we see it every day. I was able to use leftover paint from our kitchen on this so it coordinates with the rest of the main floor.

Here are some really good blogs that helped me learn how to distress furniture and create this chalkboard.
Southern Hospitality Blog
Stories of a House

Last year my mom and I made a Christmas wreath. I love that I was able to incorporate Josh's love for pheasant hunting in the wreath with the pheasant feathers. We aren't hanging this outside this year since my from stoop is already pretty decorated.

Wreath with pheasan feathers