right now

right now

Dec 11, 2009

Our Christmas Prep!

First, I apologize for the horrid photographs! I am hoping Santa brings me a new camera, but it is doubtful at this point, lol. Until Santa can get adequate funds together, I am using my iPhone camera which is notorious for substandard photos. It's good for a lot of things, pictures aren't one of them!

It has been getting into the 28-32 degree range at night (finally!) so we had sufficient Christmas spirit to decorate the house. Here's a little tour of our preparations!




There's Finnegan decorating our skinny tree, everything must be skinny to fit in this house, lol!



Teaching Finnegan the art of stringing popcorn & cranberries!

On the right is Finn's bowl of pinecones and ornaments. I must admit it is just what I would have done! Our house is what I would call "modern-cabin" (an oxymoron, I know), so traditional red & green and excess stuff everywhere really doesn't match the house, so we develop our Christmas style as we go every year!






Yes, Mama Pea, that thing with the orange flag on it is exactly what you think it is, lol! My husband is not big on Christmas decor, but he does like this particular piece of winter on the shelf. Sometimes I catch him looking at it longingly, I wonder if he is waiting for the flag to trip on that imaginary muskie swimming around the living room!











For our table we just used pinecones, we have bags and bags of them, and Loch had a good idea to fill a glass with cranberries!













Here's a view of the kitchen, we have to decorate "up high" so we don't take up too much space, so I put this up in all the doorways. My husband laughs at my garish blue tinsel and lights on the back wall over our "homebrew bar". I was going for "dive bar"... what local small town bar doesn't have garish tinsel all over at Christmas, and globs of icicles and lights draped up around mooseheads and rack mounts LOL?



















Here's the back deck, I always decorate the backyard instead of the front, since that is where we tend to entertain, as long as the weather cooperates and the wind is faint enough to have a roaring fire in the firepit.







Garish kiddie decorations are okay out here!












It will be a "Traditional Military Christmas" this year, that is, Christmas Eve & Christmas Day surrounded by friends and people we share no relation to whatsoever! Every person we know hails from a different part of the country, so it's always a tradition surprise at someone's house every year! It makes it fun, and it is very low stress and usually a pot luck affair, with stragglers showing up throughout as they get off duty, etc. It is always a collection of very different personalities thrown together by circumstance, and is always a time to meet new friends as well as those we have been stationed with for a long time. Although sometimes these are loose relationships due to frequent moving and deployments, military friends are those you can call on after 20 years of being apart and you are still welcomed with open arms and offers of help if needed. We all understand what it is like to be away from your family over the holidays, so we make our own gypsy family, and the kids will still have many memories of these Holiday Gatherings.

"Happy Decorating" to all! I am a sucker for holiday decorations and would love to see yours, keep the photos coming!





10 comments:

  1. Wow, sorry for the spacing/fonts/etc... I can't seem to get the hang of the new post editor, think I'll go back to the old one next time!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Erin you have a gorgeous house!

    Everything is so pretty with the Christmas decorations up. Y'all did great!

    We tried stringing cranberries last year, but it didn't go so well. It was so hard to get a needle through them. :(

    ReplyDelete
  3. It all looks so nice.....but you're missing some snow!
    I decorated the outside for the first time since moving here-and now I know why I shouldn't waste my time-the last snow was almost a foot, and all my decorations are buried!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Your place is so lovely and festive. More than your decorations I just love your taste in decor - modern cabin - what a concept - I don't know how you get it all so perfect - nope haven't started Christmas yet - peace for all

    ps ha ha to Sue, that is what would happen to me

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oh, Erin, what a delightful post! Thank you so much for sharing your home with all of us. I laughed and laughed thinking of the imaginary muskie swimming around the living room while evading the ol' tip-up! And I'd be happy to come sit at your blue-tinseled bar anytime. (What we couldn't do to a bottle of Bailey's!)

    ReplyDelete
  6. What a great looking house! Love the decorations. I've never tried the cranberries or popcorn on a string. I don't really trust my boys with a needle yet...

    ReplyDelete
  7. It's great that your boys get creative with the decorations. You've prompted me to get some cranberries and pop some popcorn and find a needle and thread for my two eldest.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I love the Mother Earth News mag out handy to grab and read a bit of anytime you have a minute. Mine's out all the time too.

    Your decorations are wonderful. You show such enthusiasm with whatever you do.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thanks everyone! I was a little worried about the needle & thread thing with the boys until I realized that I was their age when my mom let me string popcorn and so far I have lived 39 years to tell about it with no disabling needle pricks, lol! And yes, Sue!-send me some SNOW!! Instead of snow burying the decorations, my neighbors have a HUGE display up and the other day it was all standing in about 8 inches of flood water... yikes! Strangely enough, they were all working again last night.

    ReplyDelete
  10. P.S. Dani, I don't know about a "gorgeous house", but thanks for saying. It's hard to deal with only 980 sq feet with a family and dogs...it's more like a houseboat, lol

    ReplyDelete