Christmas in SmallWorld

If you were to pull in my driveway, you'd see early American tacky. The outside Christmas lights are crooked and/or partially burned out, mounds of leaves are sticking up through the shallow snow, and I'm pretty sure I saw a smashed pumpkin by the pear tree. But we're warm and cozy inside, surrounded by our favorite old Christmas things and some new ones, too.

This was a flash of brilliance for us this year. This frame usually has seasonal photographs in it, but my daughter and I realized that the favorite Christmas cards we had saved from last year looked perfect in the frame.

Our countdown-to-Christmas stockings/mittens. Each one has a Bible verse and candy in it, and we open one each night beginning December 1st. We started doing this several years ago, and back then I bought the stockings at Walgreens for 25 cents each. This year I've seen bloggers make these out of burlap or other material, which is very cute, but buying them sure was simple!



We made the ragamuffin garland and the Noel hanging last year. You can find the directions at Life in Grace.


We love our collection of Christmas books. We really need to box some of them up—like the Sandra Boynton Bob book—but somehow I just can't part with any of them. They are part of our Christmas family.

I love our Dickens Village, too. This is the first Christmas decoration we put up each year, and the houses and people are all old friends to the kids. We have just enough of a village to cover the top of our piano.


Mr. and Mrs. Clause, the choir boys , and the books behind them are all part of my childhood. Mr. and Mrs. Clause are actually hard-boiled egg holders. The choir boys I always imagined were my four older brothers. The Christmas Carols songbook is one that my mother and I played and sang out of all throughout my childhood. I need to go play some carols as soon as I finish this post.

I love having some of my own childhood decorations in our home. My parents don't get out their big box of tree decorations anymore, and one of these years I'm going to find that big box and be reunited with all my childhood tree decorations.

But for these years, I'm enjoying reminiscing with our own family ornaments, many of them sweetly homemade, like these three snowflakes above with my own treasures inside them.


We are looking forward to the arrival of our oldest sometime this afternoon. His last final is today, and then he'll drive the three hours home from college and our house will truly be full.

That's just a brief tour of some of my favorites in our house. Want to share your Christmas favorites and take a peek into other homes? Both Kelly's Korner and The Nester have a bazillion links to look at!