It is really and truly the most wonderful time of the year!  We’ve been decorated since a few days before Thanksgiving, and it’s all I can do to drag myself away from the decorations to go to the mailbox, or grocery shop, or work.  I’m in favor of a worldwide, month long holiday for all of December so we can settle in and be cozy.  Who’s with me?

     Our tree…oh our tree.  So we bought our tree at Lowe’s Thanksgiving night.  It was dark. It was rainy. I ran a buggy into the sliding glass door on the way out and knocked it off the runner.  Once we got this thing home…y’all, I think it kept growing.  I think it’s still growing!
     It’s kind of bald and skeleton-y, but it has charmed me.  It’s significantly more humongous than our tree last year, and it was not easy to attach ornaments to it…but its personality has spoken to me!

     My shelves are probably my favorite part of our entire house. They make everything feel so cozy and inviting, and I love decorating them for Christmas.  The giant nativity on the left is on loan from my mother.  My Nana made it, and it is huge. the camels are probably the size of a kitten.  The mantel is much more full this year, but I stuck with the “woodland Christmas” theme from last year. The shelf on the right has been one of the most fun little nooks in the house! Davis’s Christmas books and toys are on full display, and he has had the best time playing with them.

     I bought Davis several Christmas books at TJ Maxx right around Thanksgiving, and when I got home and started opening boxes to decorate, I found all of these that I had totally forgotten about from last year!  He is still really into his nativities, and will even find baby Jesus and tell me that he has a blanket and is in a “manket” (manger)…then he stares at me until I sing Away in a Manger…

     That wraps up the living room.  It is so homey and glowy and perfectly us.  We don’t do fancy Christmas at our house.  We do gaudy, overdone, and busy, and we LIKE it!

     The dining room hasn’t changed much since last year.  We still have the carpet.  We still don’t have chairs.  I did add a giant mirror, so there’s that.

          I also added a giant green cabinet and the basket tray.  Weirdly enough, our dining room houses some of my favorite things in the whole house, but still hasn’t quite gelled in my mind yet…I think it’s the carpet.

     The kitchen has a few little happies sprinkled around, but it’s mostly the same as last year.  We’ve got the sparkly bow on our front door wreath and the ceramic carolers (also made by Nana) in the back bathroom…because who doesn’t need to be serenaded in there?

     I am so thankful to have this home and this life to do Christmas in.  When Davis gets excited to play with his nativities, my heart could burst!  The fact that he knows baby Jesus is in a “manket” is almost too much for me.  I know it’s just a “trick” right now, but more than that, it’s a foundation.  How marvelous, how wonderful, how incredible that our God wrote His story for all of us. As an adult I experience a new aspect of Christmas every year, but it’s simple enough for our children!  As I get older, I’m more and more aware of the fact that it’s not the “Christmas story.” These were real people who lived a real life in a real place in service of a REAL God. 

     The same God who formed the earth is the same God who sent his only Son to the broken world, and He is the same God who is still writing His story!  I am in awe of His first coming, and filled with hope and joy at what He is still doing and will do when He comes again.  Christmas is the best kind of reset for our spirits.  A time to rest and refocus on the fact that the Jesus in the manger, however lovely, however worthy, however precious will not return as a gentle baby but as a conquering King!  We will turn our eyes on Him in a wholly new kind of reverence and awe!  I can’t wait!  Christmas isn’t the end of our year, and it’s not the end of the story.  It is the most beautiful beginning!

Merry Christmas!