Decking the halls....

My last blog was about The making of a Christmas Tree at my house.  Now I'll show you some of the other things we've done to our house to get us in the MOOD for Christmas.

First our staircase railing....

before any decorations

Our holly and lights go on

since we don't have a mantle this is where we hang our stockings

After the stairs are decorated move on to our archway between the living room and dining room.

Last year a dear friend of mine made my kids an advent calendar.  It consists of 24 different sleeves that can be filled with goodies.  Each day one is taken down and the kids get the goodies in it.

this year it is filled with puzzle pieces for my little girl and pieces of a Lego set for each of the boys

The outside of our house is in a way the hardest to decorate because we have no outside plugs for electricity.  Our house is 91 years old so that wasn't something they did when the house was built.  So we have a detached garage behind our house where we do have electricity so we run a LONG extension cord from our garage, through our backyard, along the side of our house to the porch so that I can at least have a few lights....this year we added the string around the window.

not the best picture but you can still see how it looks

For our wedding gift from my parents, my husband and I were given a nativity set.  The last couple of years I haven't put it out because of the kids being too young to understand not to touch.  This year I figured they were HOPEFULLY old enough to understand this now.  So I was able to get a table and set it up.

unfortunately a couple days after this was taken I had to super glue a wiseman's head back on

The last thing we decorate is our entertainment center.  Over the past 8 years or so I have been given a Christmas village by my sister in law.  I believe my village is full now.  It takes the whole entertainment center (goodness help us if we ever decide to get rid of this entertainment center). 

what it looks like on a "normal" day

getting ready for the village

Our Christmas village

The one item that we have but that won't go up until Christmas Eve is our "Santa Key."  Since we don't have a fireplace my sister bought us a Santa Key when my oldest was an infant so Santa has a way to get in.  We place it on the "snow" of the village until Christmas Eve and then we put it on our door.

it's been super glued a few times but it still works

That is how we deck the halls at our house.  I love the way my house looks during the holidays.