The Stockings Were Hung by the Chimney With Care...

Finished all my indoor decorating about a week and a half ago, just before Thanksgiving Day we started and I thought I would share these pictures with you. Over time, as others have shared theirs I have borrowed a few decorating ideas here and there, so you just never know what you just might see. People ask if I decorate bathrooms for Christmas, and the answer is a resounding "Yes!!!"

I love adding things to our indoor and outdoor decorations each year and believe it or not the best places to get them are from yard, garage or estate sales. You truly get one of a kind decorations that they simply don't make any more. Even antique stores are my newest novelty. I don't want what the big box stores are selling anymore. It costs twice as much and isn't made anywhere near the quality of older things.

So without further adieu, the tour of the Smith family household begins. We start where people enter our home. I have taken the liberty of collecting Christmas cards over the years because they hold so many memories and often times, people have stopped sending them. These are a few I have collected over the years.What you can't see is on most of my front facing windows are ice blue snowflake window clings I have held onto every year.

You enter the house and walk into our living room. It is where we have debates each year on where to put our 9 1/2 foot Christmas tree. We always have to be careful where it goes, because the base diameter is 6 feet round. This year my living room is all about snowmen, from my Hallmark singing snowmen to my Christmas book's I've collected over the years, these are feel like home to me.

Next you walk into my dining room which at the moment is lacking a dining room table. I have quite decided on what kind I want but I know I want it big. Seems odd, considering each year our family is downsizing and we have less and less people over but you just never know. I love hosting big family get together.

You notice the two book shelves my husband lovingly, okay was begged by me to make to house my growing collection of books that I can't part with. One day maybe but for now, when the kids move away I might just begin to reread my favorites. To me, these are my favorite places to visit. Perhaps I share a sneak peek at those titles tomorrow.

The little houses on the top of the shelves are ones that we have handpainted each year, a tradition of my husbands that we have incorporated into our Christmas celebrations. It is nice to be able to go back and look at them to see just how far we have come in painting them.

From there our home branches into 3 different directions. Walking under the arch, you enter our family room where we spend most of our time. From the mantle decorations and garland to the stockings hung with care. Our best tip was taking a curtain rod and cup hooks and attaching it to the underside of the mantle. I don't care how wonderful and weighted your stocking holders are, they will fall off the mantle when they are filled. This way, they don't fall off no matter how full you stuff them.

Our kitchen is decorated in what I am going for a vintage Christmas look. We added a Christmas plaid curtain over our kitchen window this year and some fun vintage placemats I scored at Big Lots for $2.50 each.

On top of our pot shelves are Christmas villages I have collected over the years. I have given 14 of them away to my girls to begin their own sets now that my oldest has moved out this year and has her own pot shelves which those 7 amazing buildings look right at home there now.

One set is from Christmas Valley that Target used to sell more than 20+ years ago and the other is a set of the It's a Wonderful Life with all the buildings for that.

Down one hallway is two bedrooms, our guest room and our daughter's room. This is the picture of our guest room. Feel up to stay sometime? I love the woodsie feel of this room and the painting above the bed is something my husband bought me before we were married because I didn't have the money at the time as a single mom and fell in love with the painting. It proudly hangs in our home year round.

The wooden train was something my dad built for me. The train comes off the tracks as it pulls into the station and has a watertower and ticket booth attached. For now it is carrying some of my favorite Christmas toys. My dad actually built this for me a couple years ago when I mentioned growing up I always wanted one of the wooden trains he used to build, never imagining it would be to this scale. He never knows how much it means to me. I love vintage old toys.

My daughter's bathroom comes next and it's all snowmen, icicles and lots of icy blue. It has to be my favorite bathroom of all. I have collected the snowman pieces through antique stores over the years and who knows maybe these will all go with her when she is ready to move out.

Back down the other hallway is our office and guest bathroom. I don't currently have enough right now to begin to decorate that office space but who knows what the future brings. For now I have decorated the cubby outside the office and just before you enter the guest bath. I have my favorite Gund teddy bears along with some old fashioned blocks and bears I have collected over the years. The advent calendar is something I longed for, but for now haven't done is awhile. Perhaps next year I will work on adding events to do as a family or couple to the box.

The guest bathroom is all about pines and pinecones. I even have a custom burned wood slice my dear friend, Niki made for me to remind me that "Today is a good day for a good day." It's all about the attitude. On the top shelf are my favorite Beanie Buddies that I collected and sold with my hubby. These are ones I bought and will not part with. Love the garland, ribbon and lights around the oval mirror.

In the final hallway it leads to our master bedroom. The thing I love most about our home is that there are bedrooms and bathrooms separated by the main living areas in our home and they are isolated so we are not bothered by guests or our kids when they are visiting. Our Master bathroom is now being filled with the toys from the Land of Misfits from Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. For now I have a Dolly and the Elephant. I hope to add to them over the years.

My master bedroom was just finished this year. We always pour our best efforts into where people will meet and often times neglect our bedroom but we struggled to find something that really felt like us until this year. While my husband will argue that we still missed out on the Christmas plaid quilt set that was on clearance, our love our Red and White Snowflake quilt.

We added some vintage items to our shelves and of course a wreath above our bed. Now I look forward to spending my quiet evening hours in here.

I truly hope you enjoyed my home tour and perhaps these even gave you some ideas for your own home.

Christmas Card Exchange Requested

It's Christmas time again! My favorite time of the year. I live for this each and every year that rolls around because it means for me, not only the Savior's birth which we celebrate, but it genuinely seems that most people are a little more kind than they usually are. More giving perhaps. More willing to be charitable and pass along a kindness or two.

Just the other day, my brother Mike and I talked about our Christmas growing up. Great memories even though we lived with my mom, who divorced was working two jobs just to make ends meet, so we didn't get a chance to see her that much. But we lived for the day we knew she wouldn't be home for a while so we could climb up to the rafters and get all the Christmas boxes down and begin decorating as a surprise for her.

We would use EVERYTHING we found in the bins. We added colored garland to each of the beams in our house and some sparkly snowflakes hung on fishing line or even left over glass bulbs that didn't find a home on the tree between the swags. It was never decorated the same twice. We would turn on Johnny Mathis' Christmas album and get to work. It took us all day working together, singing beloved Christmas carols. If we had time we would climb up on the roof and add our traditional Santa and two lighted reindeer along with the traditional glass bulbs. None of these icicle lights or LED's but the old stand by's you had to screw into the sockets. They were great cause when one burned out, you simply replaced that bulb.

It was such a joy to see the surprise on my mom's face when she got home and was immediately filled with the Christmas Spirit and a whole lot of love from her kids. I miss that. Traditions are important. They need to be passed along to our kids who may or may not pass them along to their own kids.

One of the traditions I see disappearing are Christmas cards. The old fashioned kind you wrote in. Not pre-printed ones, but ones you went to pick out and added your own Christmas wishes for whomever you were sending it to. Now a days, you get photo Christmas cards, with pre-printed messages on them or the Christmas letter telling you what someone's family accomplished all year. Those are great because things are so busy these days, but I miss Christmas cards. The old-fashioned kind that fill your mailbox with something other than bills or advertisements.

I love pulling out some of the one's I have kept over the years because they still mean something like Christmas decorations. They hold memories I want to hold on to. So today, I sit and write out Christmas cards because I want the person I am sending them to, to open them, smile and know that I cared enough to send them a bit of Christmas Spirit. Do you still send Christmas cards? This is one Christmas tradition, I hope never dies out.

If you want to join in a Christmas card exchange with me, I'd love to send you one if you'll send one back. Email me at Stevenkat27@gmail.com and lets exchange addresses and get them in the mail. Perhaps I share them on my blog but know this, they will all be treasured in my heart.

Gift of Love

It's been a true blessing to have time to spend with my family and even my extended in-law family who I refuse to acknowledge as in-laws. To me, they are my family as well.

I had the rare opportunity to spend Christmas with my Dad, Randy whom I hadn't spoken with for more than 17+ years. I have to say it's my fault because nothing kept us apart except our respective refusal to communicate with one another. On my end, I was afraid that the things my dad could say to me, to upset or hurt me, would always be there even though now that I am 50. That fear kept me from my Dad.

No more.

This was our first Christmas reunion, and despite the fact that all of my immediate family couldn't be there, it was enough for me to simply keep my promise and agree to spend it with my Dad.

I have watched, read and witnessed so many others watch their relationships with their own fathers slide into eternity, either through death, broken relationships or like me, simply neglect, I knew I didn't want it to continue. I had to make the first move.

And I am so glad I did.

God is the master of restoration. If you think for one moment there isn't anything He can't restore, I would challenge you to give Him a shot. You just might be surprised. Then again, you might be a whole lot like me, and fear that it might just work and you just might be happy for whatever amount of time the good Lord has given you both time to be together.

Watching my husband's father Bill, who seems to be a master at close calls, gave me much needed insight into the value of being with family.

All those childish arguments, hurtful words spoken in the heat of anger, runaway emotions that simply got the best of us, are the things keeping us apart. Time to lay those at the cross and allow God to handle the burden of carrying those things around.

In fact, the enemy would like nothing more than to keep you apart from your family. Especially apart from the family of God. Wouldn't you love nothing more than to wreck those plans?

I guess things really hit home for us when Steve's mom, Vera mentioned that she hoped this would not be her husband's last Christmas. It was important for all of us to simply be together. It's funny how some people will relinquish such control to others to keep them from experiencing the joy of being together with family and allow resentment to continue, rather than simply letting go and moving forward to the happiness and love that family can provide.

Nothing made Vera and Bill more happier this year than to see the entire Smith family together at Christmas. Nothing in my heart could ever remember a more fitting moment than watching it all come together like a Hallmark movie and being a part of it, not merely observing it. The memories created in those priceless family photographs is worth more than any amount of money we could ever hope to see.

In fact, the same could be said of my family Christmas. I loved more than gifts or cards, the memories I gained simply by watching my own children interact with their grandparents. Sharing intimate conversations they will carry with them forever. There is such wisdom and connection when families come together over dinner and I personally can't wait to spend time with them again, especially when we have no excuse why we can't get together because we all live within 5 hours of one another.

As for the gift I was super surprised to get from my Dad, well here it is.

That's right, my Dad who is super amazing got me a Turkey Fryer so next year, the hassle of trying to get the turkey done in time for dinner will NOT prove to be an challenge and will free up more oven space for other things. I especially can't wait to try a seafood clambake in this baby either. I'll make sure to send you pictures when we do!

Childhood Christmas Memories

They say that music soothes the savage beast, but sometimes I believe that music can do so much more. It can move you to tears, it can take you back to someplace in your past where you can instantly remember that song and the memory it is tied to. Memories are like that. Perhaps that is why memory related illnesses are the most difficult to bear as well as the loss when a loved one moves from this life to their eternal home.

It's those memories we take with us.

We treasure them and keep them tucked away in our hearts when a song can bring them back to life and give us a brief look back in time. 

I am constantly looking for songs to add to my Pandora play list for Christmas. There are songs I love and ones that make me cringe. Ones I have to instantly delete, thumbs down (which means they won't come back as a song choice) or unlike them.

For me, my music taste is always evolving.

Constantly changing.

And the older I get, the more I find myself listening to songs my parents did. They take me back to my childhood and a time when I can spend a little time looking back at my past with fondness and love.

Johnny Mathis does it every time.

Perhaps it was my mom's favorite, but to this day, I can't listen to one of his Christmas songs and not go back to my old childhood home and remember Christmas with my brother Mike. Listening to the songs, decorating our house and tree for my mom who worked two jobs. Taking out our Hot Wheels and playing for days while the music played in the background.It was back before the invention of cassettes, DVD's and streaming music. Back when you listened to records. Old 33's that offering the crackle as the needle found its way along the groove on my mom's stereo console.

Those were the days when tinsel, the real stuff, was hung on the trees like glistening icicles.There was a proper way of putting those on and you had to do it one at a time. This made it look amazing if you did it right and gave the illusion of real icicles on the tree.

I remember growing impatient with that tedious process and would throw handfuls in a glob on the tree. I didn't realize that my mom could see them and had to go back and restring those.

I remember Bubble Lights. We never had enough to decorate the tree so there was this strand my mom would bring out and add to the tree. It was like a misfit, but we never seems to notice. We just loved watching the bubbling liquid inside.

I remember all my mom's old vintage blown glass ornaments. The ones we would be oh so careful in removing them from their cardboard box to make sure we didn't break them. I loved looking at the beautiful colors, the glitter that got all over your hands, and finding just the perfect place for these odd-shaped but colorful beauties. In love them so much now, my family is always looking for them in antique stores to take me back to my childhood by finding them on my own tree.

I remember thick strands of colored garland that we would drape in huge swags around the tree. We had blue, green, red and gold.

I remember my brother and I, secretly decorating this giant wood beam that ran the length of our living room and entry way in these giant swags and then adding just the right colored glass bulb to complete the look. I also remember how many of them broke when the swag fell off the nail we thought we secured in that beam. I don't think Mom ever noticed how some never found there way back into the box.

By far, my all time favorite memory were the old fashioned glass bulb lights that went on the outside of our home. We couldn't wait to get to work, untangling them *think Clark Griswold in Christmas Vacation* and then stapling them to the eaves under the roof. Then painstakingly screwing in the glass bulbs one by one, ensuring that you NEVER put the same color side by side. Unfortunately by the time you got through a handful of the bulb boxes, you always ran out of the ones you needed and it messed up your color design.

See I was a bit OCD even back then.

You had to wait til it got dark to see which ones didn't work, and then had to go through the process of screwing and re-screwing new bulbs in. This was before the invention of the light sets that when one bulb burned out the rest stay lit.

In fact is is hard to find those anymore. I love it when I see old decorated homes that still use these. If I could find them, these babies would be back up on my house again.

It never failed too, when we found ones that were burned out, we couldn't wait to take them out into the street, throw them high up in the air and wait for them to explode when they landed. Silly, I know but we loved to listen to that sound.

One of my all time favorites was Ribbon Candy. I am thrilled to see that it is making a comeback now that vintage is coming back again. I loved seeing these in all kinds of shapes, colors and flavors. It was a rare find it you had one that wasn't broken. I found some like it and gave it to my kids last year.

Oh music and memories!!!

What are some of your childhood favorites? What takes you back to your childhood Christmas? I'd love to hear and thanks for stopping by and sharing mine.

Christmas Tradtions from the Smith Family

It's that time of year again as Christmas draws closer, decorations begin to go up and shopping malls are packed to capacity. I thought I would take a moment and share some of our families Christmas traditions with you and hope you might share some of yours with me.

Because the month of December and Christmas in general is my favorite time of the year, I can't wait to get all my Christmas decorations up. I have been collecting them since my mom worked at Hallmark years ago and now with yard and garage sales being so plentiful, I am still scoring more to my collection every year.

In fact, I try to get my house ready before Thanksgiving, much to the disappointment of my youngest daughter Kailee who believes that Thanksgiving is being sadly overlooked. But honestly, who decorates their home for Thanksgiving? Sure I have fall decorations but those go up before the end of September and stay up til the Christmas ones come out.

Most of the time, it's just me and Steve putting up all the decorations, pulling tubs out from our storage shed and hauling them into the house, where we plug things in to make sure that they work before putting up garland, bows, and lots of antiques I've found through many of my searches.

The one thing we hold off doing until the entire family is here is decorating our Christmas tree. We take the time to go through all our ornaments and remember those special times in our kids lives or even our own as each ornament tells its own story. In fact that is a tradition in our home. Each year, the kids pick one ornament that identifies a year in their life. It might deal with sports, a career, an interest but something they feel represents them.

We write their names on the bottom so that one day when they move out and get their own homes going, they have a pretty good starter collection going.

Another tradition, like most, is baking cookies. Each year I have vowed to reduce the numbers of varieties I bake, but usually end up making them all. Caitlyn's favorites have been magic bars, Steve's are Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Balls and Kailee's are Candy Canes.

Even my brother Mike, has his favorite, Spiced Pecans. I make a huge batch for him each year, and make sure he has them.

I make sugar cookies and wait for a time when all of us are together again, and we have a Christmas Cookie decorating contest, with the winner getting a $10 gift card of their choice based on votes from our Facebook posts and comments telling us which one they think is the best. 

Another tradition is visiting the Christmas lights in Alta Loma. My husband Steve, grew up there and it has been something he has done as part of his families tradition, plus he knows just how to get there and find the best places to park.

We usually rent a SUV or mini van to take whomever wants to come, and we all head out.

I give the kids each $5 to support the families who put on the event to buy a cup of hot chocolate or soft pretzel while we take part walking around and enjoying the display.

We even try to take a picture to make it a memorable event.

One of the Christmas traditions, my husband brought with him that we started in our new family is painting of plaster houses. We try and get each person to paint at least one to add to our growing collection each year.

We sign and date them and once again, when the kids move out, those will go with them as well. They have grown so much over the year with friends of the kids painting them that we are struggling to find a place to put them.

On Christmas Eve night, the kids each open a gift, even though they aren't really kids any longer. They already know what it will be, a set of pajamas to wear either to bed or for Christmas morning. When the kids were much younger, I used to include a Christmas book to be enjoyed that night before bed. We usually order dinner out that night because we know we'll be cooking all day on Christmas Day. We top it off with a movie or two from our Christmas movie collection.

Christmas Day is savored because it is over too soon. Coffee is made, music is ready and playing and Steve and I are usually showered and ready before waking our kids up. Now that they are older, there is no rush to wake up early.

We all take our time and do stockings first, each person revealing with they have, while I diligently write it all down, because no one can remember what they got from one year to the next.

Then we move on to presents and we each take the time to watch each person open their gifts.

Once the gifts are opened, showers begin while breakfast is being made. Phone calls go out to family that are home celebrating their own Christmas'. We generally watch Christmas movies all day long with each family member picking their all time favorite movie for us all to watch. They change ever year. Dinner preparations begin early with each person requesting different things. Steve has to have beets (yuck on my end), Kailee needs sparkling apple cider, Caitlyn wants Deviled Eggs, and I love stuffing. We make sure that we have plenty of fixings so that Caitlyn can take left overs home for a few days. We make turkey, stuffing, gravy and mashed potatoes, corn, green beans with bacon, biscuits with honey and butter, deviled eggs, and for dessert either apple or harvest pie, a blend of cheesecake and pumpkin pie.

That is how the Smith family celebrates Christmas, what traditions does your family incorporate that have been passed down through generations? I'd love to hear.