It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

I personally don't believe in decorating for Christmas BEFORE Thanksgiving, but I don't see a thing wrong with decking the halls on Thanksgiving night :) So, that's what we did......

Tree #1 (den)

We usually use these ornaments on the tree in our formal living room and I decided to switch things up a bit this year. I like the bright colors and want to actually be able to enjoy this fun tree instead of it being in a room in the house that we rarely use. I had a pleasant surprise when I pulled the decorations out this year. I found the big colored bulbs that I bought last year on clearance and we were all excited to add them to this tree! It totally completes this tree!!! yay!!

My helper and I decorating the tree


Josie (re)discovered her Little People Nativity in the Christmas box.
She loves it even more this year!
FYI... For any of you with children or those of you buying for small children, this is a PERFECT gift. We were given this by a sweet friend a couple of years ago and it's always a hit with Josie.


Decorating our Gingerbread house.
I meant to take a picture of the box that this came in because, this is also a great gift for little ones. I purchased it this year and could be a walking advertisement for it! It's a plastic gingerbread house that you decorate and can wash off and use over and over and over! How fabulous! The brochure suggests that you decorate it with your child for all holidays... there were actually cute ideas for Easter, Fourth of July,etc! I can see that we will be using this a lot!
The website for the gingerbread house is www.CandyCottage.us

Our Masterpiece!

We used white icing, coconut (snow), peppermints, gumdrops, m&m's and saltine crackers.

Guess who's back!!!

Elfie reappeared from the North Pole the day after Thanksgiving.

We were sooooooo excited!

We read the story to Josie and explained that we shouldn't touch Elfie or he would lose his magic, but (as you can see) Josie hasn't really followed that rule and actually seems to be scared when we say that we can't touch him. So, we are bending the rules :) So far, Elfie has been on the dining room chandelier, on the back door and he had made Josie breakfast by the time we woke up this morning! How exciting!!

Sneak peek of my attempt at our Christmas card
picture today :)

I actually thought that I would do a family picture this year, but I'm going to say that I really don't have the energy for it!

Stay tuned for the official Christmas card!