Christmas Notebook

I asked a young friend to take pictures at our annual Christmas Open House last week. She did a great job.

Guests sign in as they come through the front door.

The living room tree holds our family ornaments. It’s nine feet tall and sits on a two foot high box that DH made for the tree. This is one of five revolving trees we have

The living room nativity is one my mother gave me in 1983.

The Bible is about 150 years old. We open it to Luke 2 and display it next to the nativity.

Genny, my sister, chalked a roaring fire on the fireplace cover. This year it was a good thing we had a fake fire in the fireplace rather than a real one as it was the warmest weather we’ve ever had for an open house. We opened windows early in the day to get the house ready for all the company.

Everyone also enjoyed Genny’s other chalked masterpiece…an eight foot tall Christmas tree in the music room.

The music room also has the bubble light tree. This tree has old-fashioned ornaments, bubble lights {like my Grandma’s tree}, vintage postcards, and candles {never lit, in case you’re wondering}.

The tree in the dining room is the Snow Tree. We covered every branch with fluffy cotton batting. I made the snowball ornaments years ago.

The cookie table was set up in the dining room.

In the kitchen, the table held the cookies waiting to be plated.

And an army of Christmas Mice waited nearby…

The kitchen windows are decorated with a garland and my collection of snowflake ornaments.

The door that leads to the addition is painted with a holly wreath each Christmas. This door was the front door on the farm house DH’s grand-father built.

The tree in the downstairs bedroom is dubbed “the blue and silver tree.” It’s a toss-up between this one and the glass tree upstairs for “favorite.”

Behind the blue and silver tree, this Jim Shore blue nativity sits on the book case.

In the same room, you’ll find The Tale of Three Trees on the little dresser.

Upstairs in the scrapbook/crafting room, I have a tree that displays the ornaments from the ornament exchange we have each year on the Christmas Notebook group. I made the garlands over the windows last year.

This year, I decided the “I Spy” tree needed a little freshening. I added a few new items to it and then the tree was repainted silver.

Isn’t this paper doll cute? My daughter-in-law found Mr. and Mrs. Claus in North Carolina and gave then to me last year. We had them framed and they hang in the craft room.

Our youngest daughter wanted something different this year in the way of a Christmas tree. She used old Christmas cards to make a two-dimensional tree on the wall in her bedroom.

Our older daughter’s room was decorated with a book theme. Her door wreath turned out beautifully.

Her tree ornaments were all made of book pages. She punched stars and sewed them together to make the garland.

Our middle daughter’s tree is done with copper colored ornaments and beads. So pretty!

The ribbons on the glass tree look gold in this picture, but they are silver.

All the ornaments on this tree are made of glass.

With more than 160 guests, there were a few I didn’t get to say hello to. But I did enjoy talking to my second cousin and his wife and my Mom’s brother, my Uncle Tim, among others.

I hope your celebration of Christmas includes grateful thanks for all that Christ has done.

~~Rhonda