It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas! December 2011

December is my favorite month of the year! Reason one- my birthday is in December. Reason two- Christmas!! I just love everything about the whole month... the decorations, the festivities, the traditions, and of course the meaning of Christmas. I think I'm doing a pretty good job of passing along my excitement for the season to my kids... they both seem to love it equally as well. :)

After getting back from Arkansas, Mike had to work a shift for his 2nd job & so we decided it was a good time to get the Christmas decorations up. I am proud to say that I got everything down from the attic all by myself. :-) 

I don't think Jackson remembers too much from last year so it was neat to see his excitement at all the decorations. Both Jackson & Isabella helped put the ornaments on the tree & did a wonderful job... with the exception of only decorating the bottom half. So I covertly moved ornaments up as they turned away & I think overall it didn't look too bottom heavy. ;o)

And here is my pinterest inspired halloween wall turn Christmas wall.

Six Christmas' worth of pictures with Santa. And behind the pictures is our activity Advent calendar. Each day we open one container to see what activity we'll do for that day (more on that to come later). And next to the sofa, in the basket is all of our Christmas books. Every year we buy two new Christmas books (one secular & one about Jesus' birth) to add to our collection. I wrap them all at the beginning of the month & then the kids get to open them as a countdown to Christmas (we do one a day for most days & then as we get closer to Christmas we do two). We all read the book(s) together each night before bed which is really nice. And of course the kids get excited to open the present & see what book they will find.

And here are our stockings... I still just love them so much! I wish I'd had the funds to have the lady who made them make me a tree skirt to match... oh & stockings for the dogs to match too. Ah well. I'll just admire my four stockings, I guess!