We haven't done a whole lot of decorating yet. As of right now, we have a construction-paper-chain garland hanging on our mantel. I made it on Monday night. It's actually kind of festive and cool since the construction paper has bits of glitter in it. I chose red, green, and white paper. Simple, yes, but my children are young and they don't mind.
Aaron handed the fall-themed paper-chain garland to Michael on Monday night and he said "Wow! A rope!" and attempted to jump rope with it. A few minutes later, the paper-chain turned into a snake and Michael had to grunt and work really hard to keep from getting attacked. Never a dull moment with this two-year-old.
Hanging on the door leading from our kitchen to the laundry room is a Christmas Advent Calendar that my mom is letting us borrow for the holiday season. It is kid-friendly. It's a fabric scene of Mary and Joseph in the stable with pasture land around them. The pasture land is made of felt, and there are velcro squares on certain areas of the cotton fabric. Hanging below the Christmas scene are 25 pockets in which are shepherds, a dog, sheep, camels, donkeys, cows, Wise Men, gifts, three angels, a star, and Baby Jesus. Each piece has a velcro square on its back in order to adhere to the felt or other velcro squares on the fabric. Each day, the child puts a new character on the fabric scene leading up until Christmas Day when Baby Jesus gets put in the manger. I loved playing with this as a tween-- which is around the time in my life that my parents got this. My two brothers and I would alternate who got to put up the character on each day. It was fun! By Christmas Day, the whole fabric scene is filled with people and animals and a star and angels and Jesus! So fun! My mom let us borrow it this season since it's an activity that Michael can do that doesn't involve food. As soon as Michael saw it hanging up, he swiftly removed a camel and a cow. I knew that leaving all of the characters in their pockets would just be a recipe to having them all disappear at the hands of a curious toddler. So, at my mom's suggestion, I piled all of the characters in a Christmas bowl and placed it on the kitchen counter out of Michael's reach. Each day, I will take the appropriate character and place it in its pouch and let Michael put it up on the fabric. So far, a shepherd and a sheep are in the pasture awaiting the addition of the faithful sheepdog later today. :)
My Nana gave us a sticker advent calendar. It's a picture of a Christmas tree, and there's a sheet with it that has an ornament sticker for each day leading up to Christmas Day. I let Michael put the ornament stickers on for Monday and Tuesday, and I believe a present shaped sticker is tonight's choice.
The rest of our Christmas decorations are up in our attic at the moment, and I can't remember everything that we have. I'm also convinced that I don't want to use everything that we have since what goes up must come down. I plan on picking out a few things to display. The Nativity Set and stockings will join the paper-chain garland on the mantle. This will be Noah's first Christmas and I'm so excited to hang up his stocking. I got it on clearance at Target last year after Christmas and it's adorable! I'll use non-breakable ornaments on the tree if we can resist from putting up each and every ornament that we have. No promises.
I also came across this cute idea while searching "easy Christmas decorations." I have a whole container of tiny tin Christmas cookie-cutters and goodness knows we probably won't be using them all this season. Simply because, who has the time? I think the container has about 100 Christmas cookie-cutters. Surely I can spare a few easily identifiable ones to hang in the windows. I mention "easily identifiable" because my mom has a cookie-cutter of an angel in flight, and each year we twist it around in each direction trying to remember what it is! So I'll plan to use the bell, star, snowflake and tree shapes.
I'll plan to post pictures after we complete our decorating extravaganza. I also plan to take a picture of the boys for our Christmas card. I have an idea in my head that would be simply darling if it works out as planned. :)
Happy decorating to you all!
Until Next Time,
Much love, Reba
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