Fruit Inspection

What a great idea! It’s been fun today checking out everybody else’s holiday decor, so I thought I would snap some of mine and add to the fun! Many thanks to Boomama for creating the Christmas Tour of Homes. And the best part for me? I didn’t have to clean the whole house to “have ya’ll over”. I only had to pick up the crap Savannah’s new birthday toys that were laying in view of the actual photo!

This nativity has been my favorite item to put out for many, many years. My aunt visited the Holy Land when I was just a young tot and she bought this in Bethlehem. I just think that’s so cool. A lot of people put out nativity’s at Christmas. But how many can say they came from the actual birthplace of Jesus?

My favorite new item this year is this plate my sister gave me yesterday at our annual cookie bake. It says “Family Gathering” and the colors look awesome in my kitchen. She told me it came from a whole set and I’m now on the hunt for more pieces. (Jeremy, if you are reading this…I’m only kidding!)

And speaking of our annual cookie bake, here is a shot of all the yummy goodies we made yesterday. This year we have soooo many more sweet treats than last year, and my mom made extra’s of my favorite ones…the Apricot Foldovers. It looks like a TON of food. Heck, it IS a ton of food. If I don’t give it all away, I will gain 15 pounds!!! I need more friends!

This is our Charlie Brown Christmas tree. See how it kinda has an “S” shape? That’s what we get for waiting until 10 days before Christmas and 10 minutes before Home Depot was closing. You just take what you can get sometimes.

There are some special ornaments on the Charlie Brown tree though. For 34 years my Grandma has given me a gold ornament with the year and my name engraved on it. This is the one for this year. She also started doing it for each of my kids when they were born. We have a very nice collection and when they are all on the tree, it looks very pretty with the white lights reflecting off of them.

Here is my Santa holding a chalkboard with the number of days remaining until Christmas. He is such a cutie!

These are the stockings, hung with care. Yes, there are only 3. Emery’s is not here yet. My mom made all of our stockings with a pattern she created. Right now she has the pattern for sale at a local quilt shop and Emery’s stocking is being used as the in-store sample. Also, do you see the fire in the fireplace? I turned it on for special effect purposes only…it’s like, 75 degrees today!

Since it is hard to see the mantle where our stockings are hanging I took this close up. I love decorating with pommegranites. It’s a nice change from the traditional holly berries.

This tree sits in the foyer as you come in the front door of our home. I just LOVE it!!! It’s a small artificial tree, but it holds all of our “great outdoors” ornaments. There is cedar in with the pine, as well as pine cones and berries all over it with tons of white lights. I know, it needs a tree skirt, but I haven’t found just the right one yet.

Here is a close up of the above tree. The ornament says “Catch of the Day” and the garland is wooden stars and beads with more pine cones (purchased at Bass Pro Shop, of course). Some other favorite ornaments have phrases such as “I Caught Myself a Reel Man” and “Kiss My Bass”. Sure, they are not exactly heavenly angels, but they speak volumes about our family life! Ha!

This is the Christmas quilt my mom made for this year. It is big and warm and snuggly, and as I’m writing this, I just noticed that my daughter has fallen asleep under it while watching TV.

Thanks, Mom! We love the quilt!!! :)