Welcome To A New Year

Hello to you all and Happy 2020!  I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas at your home.  We certainly did, but boy was it rushed.  Such a short (and fast) time between Thanksgiving and Christmas in 2019.  Whew!    I have been so slow lately; here it is January 7th, the day after Epiphany, and I'm just now getting to share some pictures of our Christmas decor.  If you're a regular visitor here, you know I don't do a lot that's different from year to year because I have such a sentimental attachment to our Christmas things.  However, I do try to change things up a little, just to keep it from getting too humdrum.  If you're sick of seeing Christmas pics, you'll probably want to skip this post.  :D   

   Today, I'm sharing pictures from our den at Christmas.  My mom made the crescent moon and church in her ceramics class many years ago.  I absolutely love this piece; it's just so sweet.  This was actually the last thing mom made in ceramics because her teacher that she'd gone to for years got pancreatic cancer and passed away shortly after this was made.   

   This is an Austrian snow globe that I purchased online over ten years ago.  Austrian snow globes are wonderful because they have such much "snow" inside.  It's hard to tell here, but this one has a small church with a Nativity in front of it.   

   I feel like I say this a lot, but I truly think this year was my favorite Christmas mantel.  I used these candles and faux magnolia branches last year, but I didn't think to add the stag until this year.  I love the way it turned out.   

   These battery candles were a great bargain find at Costco in 2018.  I believe they carried them again last fall.  The stockings were knit for us by my sweet mother-in-law when our son was a baby.   

   Some of you may recognize these plates as belonging to the Better Homes & Gardens Christmas dishes that so many of you have.  I took my transferware plates down for the holidays and hung these instead.  Love the way they look!  :)   

  

   I love, love the ribbon used on this basket, and it's on the mantel, as well.  I found it a few years ago at Home Goods; it feels like flannel, and it's wired, too.  So good to work with.   

    

    

I love that this ribbon has some blue mixed in with the red and green.  Our hearth cricket came from Plow & Hearth a few years ago.  ;)      

     

     

   

    

   Here you can see where I used the flannel ribbon again.   

  

  

  

  

   I didn't put so much on the bookshelves this year, and I enjoyed the pared down look.   

   I took some more pictures in here in the evening because the candles and other lights show up better.   

     

   I know these Department 56 villages have fallen out of favor, but we still enjoy our Dickens Village.  This is the first time I've put it out in seven years.   

   The street lights aren't burning right now because I need to replace the batteries.   

  

   All of these pieces were given to me as gifts over the years, and they're very dear to me.   

  

   Thanks so much for stopping by my blog today!!  I hope you enjoyed the Christmas images; I had really hoped to share them sooner.  Have a great week everyone!