Christmas Shenanigans!!

Well...The season is upon us!  And I couldn't be more excited.  Why?  Well...because I get to sit back and just ENJOY the wonderful Christmas season and all things parties and goings ons.  How?  Because not only did I get all of my decorating done on Thanksgiving Day but I already had all of my Christmas shopping done in October.  Yup!  Call me crazy, but I think I like it better this way.  It is only my second year to get to do this and it makes the season much more bright for me!  Plus it makes things uber exciting on Christmas morning because by then I have already forgotten half of the stuff I wrapped up for the kiddos.  HA!

Here are a few of our decorations this year!

 Welcome!

This is probably my favorite part of our decorations simply becuase this fireplace is so pretty!

Here is our tree!  It is the first one in our kids lives that has been real.  They helped go pick it out and everything.  My house smells so stinkin good!  MMMMMMmmmm-hmmmmm!  Plus, it goes witht he "rustic" theme that I have gone iwth in the decorations for the last few years.  And see that fabulous tree skirt?  The one TRIMMED in LEATHER?  My mommy made that becuase I was so darned picky I couldn't find one that I liked AND went with the look.  Yeah for Mommies!

This is a manger scene that my wonderful Father In Love made me years ago.  I cherish this so much!  He has made smaller versions for each of my kids rooms that I cherish as well.

This is one of the many lovely things that my best friend Becky has gotten us thru the years that I will always cherish.  It's supposed to be a card holder, but I can't handle covering one single bit of it up!

This is the kids' tree in the den.  This has the ornaments that we did when the kids were little and hands were grabby.  There is nothing on it that is in any way breakable and most of it is candy themed. 

These are the stockings that were theirs when they had their first christmases.  Tear...

This year, since we didn't have a lot of decoration stuffs to buy for the rest of the house, we let the kids get trees for each of their own bedrooms.  I took them to Hobby Lobby and let them pick out their deocrations they wanted and then we got a coordinating tree.

This is My Girl's tree!  She has a black one with all sorts of neon pinks, blues, greens, purples, etc.  It is so rockin girly/edgy!  And we all love it.

My Boy went with, of course, a sports tree.  It is green with red, white and blue star garland and soccer, footballs, basketballs and baseballs on it.  It even has a baseball skirt!

Now that we are all decorated and all of the presents are safely wrapped and under the tree, we can get to enjoying the upcoming festivities and shenanigans. 

One of our holiday traditions that is coming up is touring the city of Bethlehem at Antioch Baptist Church.  Every year for 3 days they have mock up of what the city would have looked like in a field out by their church.  We have visited this every year since the kiddies were babies.  They look so forward to bundling up and headed in to await the announcement of a baby!  We make candles and taste goodies made like they may have back then.  We visit the animals in the stables and hear the Torah read in Hebrew.  It is an experience like no other!

But then, we are also doing something new this year.  All My Girl's idea.  She wants to invite some of her friends and let My Boy invite some of his friends over to "entertain" for a Christmas party.  So...off we go into what I am sure will be our first annual friends Christmas party!

Yeah!!!!!!