Christmas Decorating

When we moved to our home 12 years ago that first Christmas I went a little wild with the decorations.  In fact I put so many strings of lights on the Christmas tree that I blew out the fuse box and we lost power to the front of our house.  We had to call an electrician to repair the fuse box.

I love to decorate for Christmas.  Back then I put up 9 Christmas trees around our house.  They ranged from 4 feet to 9 feet.  I had theme trees:  A snowflake tree with blue lights and crocheted stars; a pink tree with victorian style ornaments; a bear tree; a bird and wildlife tree; a white tree with red, white and blue ornaments and so on.  I made several of the ornaments; some my mom made; and the rest I purchased at discount stores.  I had candles in each window of the home and it took 15 minutes each night to walk around the house and unplug everything.  Needless to say everyone rushed to be the first in bed so that this task was left to me. 

Then my hours increased at work and for the last couple of years I could barely get up our main tree and that was it.  I felt so stressed at Christmas time as I wanted to decorate more but I did not have the time.  I finally told myself that one tree was enough (and it was) and that was about the only decoration that went up. 

Now that I am home I knew that when Christmas time came I would decorate more than I had in the past few years.  However, I knew that I could not go overboard.  I got a late start.  Last week we managed to get the main tree up and it stood without ornaments on it until the blizzard hit.  There is nothing like a foot of snow to put you into the Christmas decorating mood.  I am posting some of the pictures of what I have done.  I found a balance and I have it all down just right.

I looked over the ornaments for our main tree that we had collected since we were married 29 years ago and frankly about half of them needed to be thrown out or stored away until I could face throwing them out.  I doubt you could call many of them keepsakes.  I went to Wal-mart and I was disappointed with the selection and the price.  I like traditional colors for Christmas and most of the ornaments were lime green, turquoise and gold. I went to the Dollar tree and when I walked into the store there were two carts with a 50% off sign.  I looked into the carts and they were filled with glass blown old fashioned type ornaments.  These looked like ornaments from the 1940's and were just what I was looking for.  I filled my cart and in the end I had close to 60 ornments and all for 50 cents each.  That fit my budget.

These ornaments look wonderful on my tree and I am delighted.  I added glass blown ornaments I already had and included some plain red, green and gold ornaments to fill in.  I think that this is the most beautiful decorated tree we have had.

When we closed the law firm in August my boss told me to take the office Christmas tree.  It is a tall, narrow tree which fits perfectly in our entryway.  I have placed all the family ornaments on that tree including those special two ornaments:  our children's first Christmas ornaments.  (You will notice in these pictures that the walls have been stripped of wallpaper, that I need to repair the plaster and paint.  A project for the first of the year.)

I have gone to using bendable garland over entryways to put my snowmen and Santa Claus ornaments and such.  This gives us more room.  I also pulled out my Fontanini Nativity set my mother in law gave me years ago and decorated our buffet with Christmas trees.  The buffet was at our office and my boss gave it to me.  He also gave me the two book shelves that are on either side of our main Christmas tree.

As to this little tree on a sofa table it is a little something special as it sits next to pictures of my family including my deceased father.

All in all I took the best of my Christmas decorations, added $30 from my purchases at the Dollar Tree and am very happy with how it has all turned out.  I have only one thing to add and that is the Christmas stockings which I made.  Which leads to future Christmases and ornaments.  I used to years ago cross stitch a lot.  I have a lot of packages of cross stitch kits of Heirloom Santas and angels and more.  I probably have close to 40 kits that I purchased over 15 years ago.  I did stitch a few but gave up as I was working so many hours.  Over the next few years I plan to stitch those ornaments and hang them on a tree or garland. 

I have to say that as I sit here typing this on an overcast wintry day with all the Christmas decorations and lights up, I feel like the queen of my home indeed.  Oh and it helps to have "White Christmas" on t.v. too.