Christmas Pictures

Hello Friends!  What a quick week this has been.  Are you having a good one?  When I was growing up, New Year's Day was officially the end of Christmas at our house.  My mom worked full-time, and she used that day off from work to get her decorations taken down and put away.  After she and my dad retired, they left the decorations up a little longer because they've always loved Christmas.      Because we always get a fresh tree at Christmas, I could never bear to take ours down by January 1st and often left ours up until the middle of January.  These days, I consider Epiphany (January 6th) to be the official end of the Christmas season.  As much as I've enjoyed our decorations, I'm mostly ready to start taking them down for another year.  Hal and I have another household project we are anxious to start (it's one we can do ourselves).  However, I need to get most of the Christmas things put away first.     I was disappointed not to share any pictures of our Christmas home this year, so I'm just going to share some now before I start taking everything down.  I took a lot of pictures (as usual) 😏 but I'm only sharing my favorites.  I hope you don't mind seeing a few more holiday images here in January.      

   

   

At this point in our lives, I don't change a lot of things from one Christmas to the next.  We still get a new ornament for the tree now and then, and I'm adding to my collection of faux greenery because those seem to get prettier and more realistic looking every year.  

   

I took these pictures around 1:00 a.m. on Christmas morning while the gifts were still under the tree, and all was quiet and peaceful.       

  

The advent calendar on the door was a gift from when our son was just a toddler.

The rest of the pictures were taken on January 2nd during the daytime.  I got some new greenery for the olive bucket at my favorite place, the Corn Crib gift shop in Virginia.  This was my favorite Christmas arrangement so far.  😊   

  Love the way the baker's rack turned out, too.   

         

   

      

   

The six candlesticks and tapers are new this year.  The tapers are battery operated, and I love them!!  They look so real; they have remote control with a variety of settings as well as a dimmer option.  I'll share a link for these -- they came from Amazon, and I thought they were very reasonably priced.  This centerpiece is a favorite, and I almost got rid of it -- what was I thinking?  My mother-in-law made this for me many years ago when we lived in our house in Greensboro.  I had it stored in a plastic bag, and when I took it out last year, I realized it was still in great shape.  I've always thought it was pretty, and on seeing it again after all these years, I think it's beautiful.  The three candles in it are real, not battery operated.  They match the others quite well, I think.      

This is also something new to us.  These are vintage Shiny Brite ornaments that my parents had for many years.  My mom gave some of them to me last year, and I'm so pleased to have them.  They are colorful and full of memories.     

      

I'm showing this picture because for the whole 20 plus years we've lived in this house, this foyer was always dark.  I could never get decent pictures in here unless I turned the overhead light on, and then sometimes that was too bright/harsh.  We are so happy to have this natural light in our foyer now -- it makes a huge difference.  Other than that, I decorate this area basically the same every year with our nativity scene, candles, and greenery.
 

      

We are thankful we could enjoy another good Christmas.  Thank you for being patient with the picture overload and humoring me while I shared them here.  Now I'm ready for cozy winter decor.  It's my favorite time of year to curl up with a good book and browse through good recipes for hearty comfort food.     I appreciate your visit today and hope that you're having a good week, dear friends.  Stay warm and well!