Where Bloggers Live: My Favorite Christmas Decorations

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I’m the laziest of Christmas decorators. When the kids were little, I couldn’t wait to put up the decorations. Of course, this is no surprise, as kids tend to make things magical. Once they moved out of the house, I still decorated but it was all last minute. This year was no exception. I literally put up the decorations two days ago. And, as with every other year, I’ll probably take them down the day after Christmas.

Still, I do love Christmas and all the decorations that come with. When my babies were little, I used to buy special ornaments for each of them. I’d make sure they represented something about each child – a hobby, a favorite color, something – and I’d date them. My goal was to build up a little collection for each of them, so that when they moved out on their own, they’d have a collection of ornaments and memories to start their own traditions. However, during one of our many moves, my ornaments were lost. I was heartbroken.

ABOUT WHERE BLOGGERS LIVE

Welcome to the monthly edition of Where Bloggers Live. It’s kind of like HGTV’s “Celebrities at Home,” but…Bloggers! Who doesn’t like to peek behind the scenes and see inside people’s homes? Over the next few months, we’ll share about our work spaces, home towns, and more!

I should note – because this is super important – the creative brain behind this project is Bettye at Fashion Schlub! Love her!

The Celebrity Bloggers

Bettye at Fashion Schlub
Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks
Jodie at Jodie’s Touch of Style
Iris at Iris’s Original Ramblings
Leslie at Once Upon a Time and Happily Ever After
Sally at Within a World of My Own

Make sure you visit everyone to see where the magic happens!

THE THEME: My Favorite Christmas Decorations

Our first Christmas in Louisiana, we’d planned for all of our children and grandchildren to visit, so I wanted to find a way to bring back something of the ornament tradition that I’d started years earlier.

While perusing the Christmas aisle in Target, I stumbled across these little people ornaments and thought, Oh, I’ll get one for each of the kids and grandkids. And that’s what I’ve done, for the last five years.

At the beginning of each season, I go to the Christmas section and look for ornaments to represent all my children and grandchildren. I’ve also added significant others to the mix.

My kids find this hilarious. Their SOs think it’s weird. Honestly, I think it’s a mix of everything and more. I hope when the kids take the ornaments, if they take the ornaments, that they’ll look back on them and laugh. Perhaps they’ll remember my frantic phone calls when I couldn’t find enough people to represent all of the kids, their significant others, and the grandkids. Maybe they’ll reminisce over me trying to find proportionate size pets to go along with the people {which I haven’t found, so my kids who’ve given me grandpups and a grandkitten don’t have family members on the tree. Yet.}.

I’ve had this nativity set since my kids were in elementary school. I remember when I found it at Kmart {do you remember that store?}, I had to have it. It reminded me of when I was a kid at church and we’d put on our little Christmas pageants. Us, in our Sunday best, with bathrobes, tinsel, and walking canes serving as costumes. A doll serving as the baby Jesus. We had a real baby one year and, y’all, that was insane. The baby kept crying, no one could hear us recite our lines, it was perfect.

I found these pillows at Pier 1, I think. I like them because they add a touch of festive coziness to the living room.

NOW IT’S YOUR TURN

Do you have a favorite Christmas ornament? Is there a theme to your Christmas decorating? Are you a right after Thanksgiving decorator or a last minuter like me? I’d love to know all about your Christmas decorating traditions, leave a comment below.

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