Merry Christmas!

I am babysitting sub-contractors today, so I am locked in at home. The printer is not working, so I can't complete the projects I had plans to do today. So here I am posting my SECOND blog entry in ONE WEEK!

For my friends and family that can't be here during the holidays, I have taken a few pictures of the house decorated on the inside:

Since we are in a different home this year, decorating has been different, obviously. Instead of hanging our Christmas cards from the front room garland, I decided to hand them around the mirror above the music boxes. My Grams gave my sister and me one music box every Christmas when we were growing up. My sister lives in Chicago in an 800 square foot apartment. We live in a 3,300 square foot house. My parents didn't have to pay shipping to get the music boxes to me and safely away from a hurricane prone area, so they are in my care until something can be done to get half of them to my sister safely and with minimal expense.

Here's where the stockings were hung with care. We have a new one this year! No, not a baby's, but another horse. Reagan's is bright green. We have eight total now! We plan to frame a copy of our Christmas card each year and put it on the mantle at Christmas time. It'll be a fun new tradition. Now we don't do Santa here at 22ft, but we have stockings up. I have no idea how you reconcile those two things, but I really don't care anyway. We do what we want here, as long as it causes no personal harm.
Here's one of my famous sideways pictures. We have a lovely staircase in this house (two actually, but only one is lovely). When we were growing up my mom placed these two holly decs on our staircase. She has no use for them, so now I put them on min! They compliment it so nicely.
Ah, and here we have the Christmas Tree! Other than the Nativity, it is probably my favorite decoration. You can tell so much about a person by their Christmas Tree, you know?

Sam and I have started another tradition of our own by buying a Christmas Tree ornament every year that, from the selection given, symbolizes the past year and the gifts God has given us. In our marriage, we've never had just one ornament for the year so far!

Let me tell you about them:

If you can't guess what type of ornaments we had for our first Christmas as a married couple, them you might be drinking too much eggnog. I don't think we bought one ornament the first year. They were all gifts.

I believe my mom gave us this one. It says what any newlywed ornament would say and it has the year. I don't know if you can tell, but it is a heart cut from a mirror. So, when Sam and I look at it together we can see ourselves in it - TOGETHER! AWWW!!! Ok, now you can go throw up. It makes us a little nauseous too when we do that.
This one needs little description. A gift from a thoughtful neighbor.
I have no idea who gave us this one. It could have been my Grams, my in-laws or a neighbor. I have no idea. Out of the three though, I would pick this one as our ornament of 2006.

And here we are in 2007. This year we went to Idaho to celebrate Christmas with my mom's maternal side of the family which included 20-30 people here and there. We stayed in a cabin in the mountains. This side of the family is densely populated by women, so needless to say when you smashed us all together there was just a little DRAMA from time to time. Everyone brought an ornament though, and we did an ornament exchange Christmas Eve. It was a lot of fun. Sam and I brought two very silly ornaments and one nice one. We ended up with this wreath, which my Grams brought and two others. We got a lot of ornaments in 2007, but this is in the top two.

Next up is this little house. December of 2007 we had our house on the market, tried several times to buy the one we are in now, we were renovating it, starting up a business in the other and I was preparing to be in Idaho for two weeks for Christmas, but we did it! We got the house. My mom found this little ornament which says "New Home" with a little key at the top and 2007. It is the other than made the top two. Christmas in Idaho and buying the Foursquare were the big things of 2007.

Here's another that was good too. My brother-in-law made this one which has the family name and 2007 on it. Stained glass is my FIL's business. I like it because around this time he became engaged to his now wife, and joined with his girls (our nieces) they make four. There are four pieces of this ornament that join together and in the center to make one. It's just kinda sweet.

Ah, 2008! Looking at this cute little ornament, you would never know that it was quite controversial for 22ft. I LOVED it the moment I saw it. Sam - I won't really say how he felt about it other than he was happy that it made me happy and that's where his attachment to this ornament ends. I picked it because it contains different little animals in the house and on the back it says "Happy is the home that shelters a friend. 2008" One of our reasons for buying a larger house was so we could better use our home for the service of others. We do our best to regularly have people stay with us, eat with us and visit with us. Whatever little animal that needs a place to stay is also welcome. So, I thought this ornament was perfect. The only reason we ended up with it is because Sam really wanted to leave the mall, so he told me he thought it was ok and here we are.

Ok, this is the ornament that we really wanted to 2008, but nothing like it was to be found at Hobby Lobby, Hallmark or any mall kiosk for miles around. Where did I get it? Tractor Supply Co. Yup. We wanted some type of horsey ornament to symbolize the search for Reagan and all of the fun we have had being together and with the horses. After the cancer scare with Sam we just bit the bullet and got him a horse so we could spend that fun time outdoors together doing something active and relaxing and thrilling and wonderful all at the same time. So again, for 2008 the house has been a huge blessing and so have the horses.

So tell me, what kind of ornament would you pick to symbolize your blessings in 2008? What big or significant events have happened? What little things stand out? I can't wait to hear your responses!

Now, in all of this talk of decorations, don't think that I have forgotten the Nativity. I haven't. It's just that I have so many they require their own post!!!