Pride Cometh Before the Fall - - or HUGE Crash....

So as most of you know, Christmas is big for us.  I love decorating for Christmas.  Every year at the after Christmas sales, I stock up buying lights, greenery, ornaments, you name it, I love it!!!  I even have it all organized (or at least I did)  Until we moved here, it was all clearly labeled in totes on shelves in the garage.  Here, it is all still clearly labeled and in totes, but just in a huge stack in the corner of the basement :)  You can see my storage system here and look at past pictures of Christmas here and here.

This year has been harder for me.  We have been traveling a lot and very busy getting ready for hubby's deployment.  He leaves the day after Christmas, so it is kinda hard to get in the Christmas spirit, just for the fact that once we actually acknowledge that it is the Christmas season, then we also have to face the reality that he is leaving :(   And by the way, I think every store has a countdown for how many days until Christmas.  I never noticed that before, but when you only have to add one and you get the number of days until hubby deploys, you really start to notice!

But, Christmas is all around us, and it is my favorite holiday, so this week I finally gave in and started decorating.  I was insistant that this year we would not begin decorating or listening to Christmas music until after Thanksgiving - - we were successful with that!  But, in keeping with my "lighter and brighter" theme and knowing that what goes up, must come down.... I have only put up a tree, set out a few things on shelves and tables, and decorated the fireplace mantle.

I was quite proud of myselft for putting up any Chirstmas at all, and then on top of that getting it all done in one day!  It usually takes me at least two weeks to get it all up!  Here-in lies the pride from the title....  As I went to bed last night, I was composing the perfect blog post in my head (do you all do that?).  I was showing beautiful pictures of the tree, with perfect closeups of the ornaments; georgeous pictures of the mantle with all the lovely delicate mercury glass trees and ornaments.  I was working on all the wording, making sure that you could experience it all, as if you were right here at home with me.  I slowly drifted off into beautiful sleep dreaming of the perfect reveal I would have for you all in the morning.  ENTER THE FALL - - yes, at almost precisely midnight my beautiful dream was brought back to reality with a massive crash that I have never in my life heard before.  Hubby and I jumped out of bed and went running - - he to the kids rooms to make sure they were fine (he had no clue what the noise was) and I went running downstairs knowing for certain what that noise was.....can you guess?  The tree?  No, it was standing tall and proud.  The mantle?  yes...  What a sad, sad day to wake up to a massive crash and find that all the pretties you had so carefully placed there just hours before were now shattered into millions of smitherines and coating the carpet like mercury glass fairy dust.

You see, our house doesn't have a mantle, we have a fireplace with nothing over it, just a flat wall of drywall.  Blah!  So when we moved in, I decided to hang a shelf that I had that perfectly fit the space and to anyone looking at it, you would think that we had a very modern mantle.  It was so convincing, that I forgot it was just a shelf and it could not support everything that I had put up there.  Everytime I put something up, I thought, well, this is really light, so it should be fine.  When I cleaned up the class this morning and put it all in a box, I realized that I probably had almost 10lbs of glass up there.  OOPS!  Lesson learned!

So, there aren't many pictures of Christmas decorating for you to see because I hadn't taken any pictures of it yet, I was waiting until this morning to do that.  I guess you will just have to try to imagine what this huge pile of broken glass looked like when it was all nicely displayed on the mantle!!

Charise put it all into perspective for me this morning as she was watching me clean up the glass she said, "Aww, Mommy, that makes me sad because it was beautiful.  BUT (said in her charming optimistic way) at least we still have the tree and baby Jesus didn't get hurt."  She's right, focusing on the real reason for Christmas always helps put things back into perspective.  Christmas isn't about trees and decorating or pretty mantles for that matter, it isn't about presents, and ultimately it isn't even about family - -- - - all those things are great and good and we should enjoy them, but Christmas is about celebrating the birth of Jesus our Savior.  If we use decorating, and gifts, and family to help us celebrate, then even better as long as our focus remains not on material things, but on Jesus Christ who was born on Christmas to save the world!

The nativity scene that we always put under our tree to remind us of our greatest gift.  Charise loves to set it up and play with it all season, this is currently how she has it places, but I guarentee that it will change at least 15 times today!

Enjoy the rest of the pictures of the tree and details!!

What do I do with all that Christmas Stuff?

Remember all that Christmas stuff I had out? Well, what to do with it the other 11 months out of the year? The one question I get from everyone is "where and how do you store all of that?" Well, here is the answer... in my garage! Handsome hubby and I spent one entire weekend (earlier this summer - - thankfully we did it then not knowing that he would break his back and not be able to help put any of it away!) putting up shelves in our garage. We were trying to come up with a "cheap" meaning not break the checkbook option, but it also had to be ligtweight and able to be taken down and put back up when we move. Ahhh, the chalenges of military life! I think we came up with a fantastic solution and even though out next place may not have a huge garage (or no garage - sorry Autumn) I think this will be versatile and be able to be used again. We bought the heavy duty garage shelf supports - - the cheap ones though - - don't look in the garage storage area or the storage area for that matter... go to the nuts and bolts area of your store and hidden in there you will find the "cheap" storage brackets. They were only $1.25 each. Then we went and got the full sheets of MDF (lightweight) and had it cut right there in the store into three equal long strips and whala! You have a great shelf for very little money!! We actually had 4 sets of these (for a total of 12 - 8 ft shelves) Here is all is in our garage. This one wall is just my Christmas stuff/stuff for dinners. I try to label everything very clearly in case I need something during the year. I am notorious for wanting all my silver Christmas bulbs for a dinner in July... so I try to keep it all organized!

You can't tell from the picture very well, but the top shelf is all of my "table top" Christmas trees, that way I don't have to take all the decorations off of them and I don't have to pack them up in a box or crate.

The Problem With a Pretty Christmas

You know, there is just one problem with having a "pretty" Christmas. You have to take it all down! We are in the middle of trying to pack up Christmas right now. And not just pack it away in the garage, but as any of you military families know - even though we are not supposed to move this next year, the moment you think you can just put all the glass ornaments in a box without wrapping each one individually, that's the moment the Army will decide you need to move! So, with that in mind, I am trying to be patient (not an easy thing for me) and wrapping everything carefully. I also have the problem of wanting it all organized (another thing that doesn't come easy for me). It's just that you never know when you might need something that has been packed away with the Christmas stuff! I am notorious for using Christmas decorations throughout the year - - just re purposing them! So, with that in mind, my goal for the day is to get this stuff packed up in an organized manner while staying patient! Hmmmmm.... maybe I'll just change my goal to "getting Christmas packed up!"

The other problem with a pretty Christmas is that once everything is down and put away, your house looks naked! There's no more glitter or sparkle glowing back at you everywhere you look, no more magical hanging forest to light your dinner table with, and no more "natural" nightlights made from Christmas trees that are left on all night because you forgot to make sure the powerstrip was pulled out far enough from the corner before you started decorating the tree! Not that that happened to me, I'm just saying it is possible!

Well, with that being said, if I am going to accomplish any of my goals for the day - - organized, patient, packed up.... I had better get myself moving! Wish me luck!

Details

Don't you think love is in the details? I love all the little details around our house. I love for people to look around and find little things that they did not see at first. Since you can't actually walk around our house and look yourself, I thought I would point them out for you.

Details of the tree

Garland Details

Tree topper

tree #2 details

Glittery bird

Dining Table Centerpiece

Tree # 2 details

Little vignette in the living room

Metal apothecary jar with Christmas bulbs

Stairway details

I pray you all have a wonderful Christmas tomorrow. Enjoy every moment with your friends and family. Stop and take time to enjoy the "details."

Just a little side note, Jason is doing much better. For the first time today he was able to get out of bed with minimal help. Woo hoo!!! He still can only stand and lay down - - no sitting allowed, but thankfully, he is on the mend.

More Tour of Home picts!

Our bedroom - - Jason snuck those stuffed animals on the bed right before the pictures were taken! Actually there is a cute story behind them. Last time that Jason deployed, the kids and I made him a build a bear puppy. One where you can record your own message (that's his on the right) and then he made one for each of us (mine is the teddy bear on the left) So sweet - - just maybe not for decorating for tour of homes! The kids room. Remember those pictures a few posts back that showed that I was re-doing my work room.... well, here is the room that used to be the workroom. It is now the kids room. We got them matching beds with storage drawers underneath. It turned out really cute. I hung branches above each of their beds, and then decorated the branches with lights, beads, the letters of their names and birds. They really are to die for!
We took the closed door off and put some curtains up, it has become Cameron's lego building area!

Keep checking back, because the next post is going to be my new work area. A great improvement from the last mess you saw!!!!

Just Garland

I just got home from a day of running to sick kiddos to the Dr.s but I didnt' want to miss out on the Nesters Mr Linky party, so I am posting some quick pictures of my garland and if you want to see all of the house, keep poking around my blog and you will see it all!

A close up of the candles in the garland

More candles!
you gotta have feathers and fruit!

and giant pinecones from Sequoia

And a full picture of it all! It really is more beautiful in person, but this is the best I can do with pictures!

Tour of Homes 2008

Each year on post the OCSC has a fundraiser called Holiday Tour of Homes. We were privelaged to be a part of it both last year and this year. It is a blast to decorate the home in expectation of around 100 women and husbands walking through your home. A little stressful at times too! I will try to put as many pictures on here as I can. If you were not able to attend the tour, go and grab a cup of coffee and sit back and enjoy your own personal tour brought to you via the internet!

This is on our front porch as we welcome you into our home.

As you walk in, to your right is our family room. The stained glass window was Jason's present to me on our 8th anniversary.

A little Holiday message on the entry way wall. I love those vinyl rub on stickers. I sure hope I am able to save them for next year! Any ideas on how to save them?

The next area of our home you walk in to is our dining room / kitchen. We decided to move our table in here so that we would be closer to the kitchen and because it is the biggest room in the house and our table is huge! It has worked out well. Remember the "magical hanging indoor forest" Well here are the best pictures I could get of it and also of the "amazing garland" that I made. The Nester is having a Mr. Linky party tomorrow for garlands and I am hoping to figure out how to post mine on there. (and hopefully have a link on here also)

I have a zillion more pictures to post - - I do have the entire upstairs to show you yet, but for fear of losing what I have already done, I will post it in a second post. I hope you have enjoyed the tour so far!

First pictures of the Amazing Garland!!!

As soon as hubby got home tonight I asked him if he knew where the camera was, of course he did, it was on the shelf right next to the hook where I usually hang it. But of course I didn't see it because I didn't want to turn on the lights to look because I have all the Christmas lights up and I love how they look and I didn't want to ruin the mood by turning on overhead lights!

So these are the first pictures of the garland in my dining room. I am going to try to get some better pictures tomorrow when the sun is out and hopefully the room is clean! :) We don't have a fireplace in our house, and I really miss decorating one for the holidays, so I make do with what I have and what I have is a whole wall of bookshelves with our "homeschool" hutch in the center. We keep all our books, posters, pens and homeschool whatnots in there. You can see just a glimpse of the branches that I hung on the ceiling above our table. That will be a separate post! Feathers and japanese lantern flowers along with the huge pinecones I collected while we were at Sequoia National Forest this past summer. When I saw them, I knew I had to have them for decorating this Christmas.

I love, love, loooovvvveee these sayings that you rub on. I found this one on clearance at Target ($5) woohoo! I think it looks great on this mirror that is on top of the hutch - - I also wonder why it was on clearance when it isn't even Thanksgiving yet.....hmmmm maybe it was just a God treat for me!