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Christmas Around Our House

I thought I'd share some photos I took of our Christmas decorations this year.  I use mostly the same decorations from year to year but change up where I put them.  This year I went with a somewhat "glitzy" theme in the dining room.

Our Advent calendar and vintage Christmas tree sat on top of the bookshelf in the dining room, along with our Christmas elf:

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On the sideboard I used our crystal candlesticks and some fancy Christmas trees I made a few years ago out of styrofoam cones, lace, ribbons and buttons (with a lot of help from my trusty glue gun!):

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This year's menu for Christmas dinner was on display:

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In the dining room window we always hang these large glittered pine cones that I adore.  Our honeymoon was in Lake Tahoe where they have GIANT pine cones and ever since then I've loved decorating with pine cones as it reminds me of our honeymoon. 

The garland was made from wine corks that mostly came from our wedding reception.  I'm not sure who thought to save all those corks but somebody did and somehow I ended up with them.  I used a dremel to drill small holes in the them and then just strung them together....

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Under the pine cones we put out a few of my Department 56 Dickens' Village buildings.  I've been collecting these for a while, they remind me of the year I spent in England in college.  We put Victoria Station, Regents Coffee House, and the Yuengling Brewery (which is not from Dickens' Village but is a Pennsylvania brewery) out along with a few small figurines. I was a little worried about these being at LP's eye level but he did very well.  There was one small incident but it was easily fixed with some glue....

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More village pieces went out on the shelf above the fireplace which runs across the whole width of the room.  Westminster Abbey was on display:

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Along with the Big Ben Clocktower and the Old Royal Observatory:

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Here's the stocking my mother made for me when I was a baby, along with Gabby's new stocking from Grammy and Paul's stocking (I ALMOST finished the stocking I was working on for him but didn't quite get it done.  Next year!)

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And here's Little Paul's stocking along with Socks'.

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A shot of one of our snow globes with the tree in the background:

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One of our newest ornaments- my grandmother gave us this gorgeous covered bridge this year:

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I've been collecting star ornaments for a while now, here's one of my favorites:

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And although it's hard to see in this photo, a few years ago Paul went out to buy us some new Christmas lights and came home with these pine cone shaped lights- he knew I'd love them!

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One of LP's favorites, Bob the Builder:

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The whole tree....

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I decorate the railing on our stairs differently every year.  This year it had swags of pine cone garland with berries and flickering candle lights (these are very hard to photograph!):

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We also did a little tree for LP in the office/play room on top of the coffee table which had been moved in here temporarily. We filled the Advent calendar with small ornaments for him to hang on his tree every night. 

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And we put all of his Christmas books out on display, including the Pennsylvania Dutch version of "The Night Before Christmas," which starts out with "It vas night before Christmas, und all over the farm...."

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The house looks so pretty with all of our holiday decorations up.  We'll probably start taking the tree and things down this weekend but I like to leave things up longer that aren't specifically for Christmas- that way I get to enjoy my Dicken's Village and our pretty garlands a bit longer!


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