Lights All Aglow

 

Here's our drop-dead-gorgeous REAL tree this year (I'm referring to the tree itself, not the ornaments...or the tiny little strand of popcorn tucked into the middle of the tree...see it?)  Those of you who read my earlier posts will now see why I gushed so enthusiastically about our lovely noble fir tree.  It makes me happy just looking at it.

We haven't gotten very far with the kids' paper ornaments or the token little popcorn strand...I had drawn out designs for the kids to color and cut out, which they did enthusiastically for about 20 minutes and then, well, that's about all one can expect from a 4 and a 6 year old.  I haven't had time to make any more popcorn strands to add to the one we did as a family the other night, with limited success (see Snow post below), and I don't think we'll have time to get around to it, either, with our moving sale this Saturday and the packers coming the week after.  The red plastic balls and occasional candy cane will have to do this year. 

I unwrapped all the ornaments to take the photos for my previous post, but then rewrapped them with double the tissue paper to prepare them for the big move.  I know there won't be time to do that next week, and I want them to be safe!

 

I thought I'd better take a picture of the Mele Kalikimaka (Merry Christmas in Hawaiian) sign that I painted years ago, as I'll be selling that soon.  It's hard to see how big it is in this picture - it's about 6 feet long.  I have it suspended from the eave of our house.

   

Since I'm not doing any decorating outside this year, I thought I'd include some pics of when I went all out decorating in our previous house here on island.  These were taken about 4 years ago.  When it doesn't get cold during the Holidays, people tend to do a little more excessive decorating to make it feel "Christmas-y".  I am definitely no exception!

These were my big snowy friends who graced our rocking chairs for 4 years.  They have a new owner now, as we are moving to the land of real snowpeople!  To make them, I just sewed large white tubes, gathered them at the top, lined them with quilt batting, and stuffed them with crumpled newspapers.  I tied string around the sections to create the body sections, and added felt features.  The noses were made from toilet paper tubes cut into a cone shape, then covered with orange felt.  To store them I removed all the crumbled paper = much smaller space requirements that way.

 

This is my nativity scene that I painted several years ago.  It's a piece of MDF board with pressboard "shingles" nailed and glued to the "roof".  All the stars (you can see them in the yard pics above) were cut out of pressboard and painted.  Quite a job!  The backs of the stars have a little block of wood glued to them, with a little hole drilled in the block of wood for the bamboo skewer to be inserted into the block of wood.  Yes, I was crazy to have spent so much time on those decorations.  :-)

 

...and here we have my eager little gingerbread house makers.  This is a tradition that the kids REALLY look forward to, and they take great delight in placing all the candy onto the frosting.  They also take great delight in eating the frosting and the candy, of course.  Thank you, Costco, for making gingerbread house kits!  All the fun, none of the hassle.

Comments

[vera watkins]

Your decorations look wonderful and those 2 gingerbread house makers are adorable.

[Amy]

I love your nativity scene. It's beautiful!