Amy Beth

December 17, 2013

Christmas Home Tour

Today I’m linking up at Nesting Place for her annual Christmas Tour of Homes. Check it out if you want to see about a million other home tours.

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I think God put Christmas in December because he knew we would need a reason to add warmth and cheer to our homes during the long, dark winter nights. (Ok, so he had some more significant purposes in mind when he sent his son to earth as a baby. But that’s one of the great things about God. He shows his love in the great big unfathomable ways, but also in the tiny daily details of life. Like giving us the opportunity to enjoy Christmas lights and garland.) If only it were socially acceptable to leave Christmas decor up through February.

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Needless to say, decorating for Christmas makes me happy. However, this is also the time of year when comparisons and feelings of inadequacy run high, even when it comes to something as simple as ornaments on a tree. I’ve seen a lot of really beautiful homes decked out across the internet, and they always leave me drooling what with all of their baubles and pom-poms and glittery gold DIY’ed crafts. But I’ve come to accept the fact that those kinds of things are not in the cards for me right now, and instead I am thoroughly enjoying my very simple bit of Christmas decor. And since I like it, and am proud of it, and am pretty sure it’s not going to make anyone stumble with envy, I’m going to share it with you.

First up is the tree. I love the look of color-coordinated theme trees, but I doubt I’ll ever have one of my own. I love my random assortment of ornaments too much. I feel like each one has a story and bring up special memories.

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Like my Puppy Love ornaments. I have 23 of these puppies. Not because I feel the need to cover my tree in mischievous holiday canines, but because my Aunt and Uncle gave one to me when I was just 6 years old. It was the first of a new series of ornaments from Hallmark and they planned to give one to me each year until the series finished. Little did any of us know that it would keep going for 23 years. But now when I see any of my little puppies, it makes me think of my Aunt and Uncle and their presence in my life for all those years. And now the puppies are some of Charlie’s favorite ornaments.

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We also have a collection of small wooden ornaments from my childhood advent calendar tree.

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And ornaments given to us by good friends.

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And ornaments to commemorate special occasions.

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We have a lot of ornaments from my sister in law. She took it upon herself to make sure we would have a fully stocked tree during our first year of marriage. I didn’t realize at the time, but she apparently was already figuring that she would have a curious little nephew one day. The ornaments from her are some of the most Charlie-proof.

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Moving on from the tree we have our Advent calendar, Charlie’s Christmas treasure basket, and the nativity scene.

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A nativity scene in my family has the very specific requirement for the ability to remove Baby Jesus from his manger. This is to facilitate one of my favorite Christmas traditions of “find the Baby Jesus, then read the Christmas story.” I doubt there are many families who play hide and seek with Baby Jesus, but it’s definitely a tradition we’ll be continuing with our family.

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Then we have our stockings. I finally got around to finding some stockings this year, so now I have to think of ways to fill them. Since we don’t have a fireplace mantel or any other area that would make sense to hang stocking, I just hung them on the wall with some little command hooks. The garland was a last minute idea to cover up the ugly plastic hooks.

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That’s pretty much all we have as far as Christmas decorations go. It’s not a lot, and it’s definitely not fancy or expensive, but it fills our home with an extra dash of color and cozy. And it fills my heart with gladness.

Merry Christmas!

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