Christmas #1 & #2

We always 'do Christmas' several times in December.  This year we celebrated with Wesley's side of the family at our house.

 Eli was so much fun this Christmas!

We actually did Christmas with Ginny, Pops, and Aunt KT, on December 23.  Because of Wesley's ill grandmother and other family time/travel constraints, we did our family Christmas on Dec. 24.  So Dec. 23 was actually our Christmas Eve.  Confused yet? : )

After opening gifts with the Taffs, Wesley, Aunt KT, and Pops visited with "jam-mama" (as Eli calls her), while Eli, Ginny, and I did some baking.

Then, we decorated cookies to leave for Santa!

But of course there had to be some quality control taste-testing!

 Christmas morning (the 24th) picture on the stairs before going to look and see what Santa brought!

Poor boy thought he really got Cheez-Its for Christmas.  He was not impressed with a box of full undies!  I guess potty training may not be happening as soon as we thought!

2012 Christmas Card

Merry Christmas from the Taffs

Stationery card

View the entire collection of cards.

Christmas Home Tour

 Here I am five days before Christmas (or just a few minutes before the end of the world if you believe those crazy Mayans) and I'm just now getting Christmas decor pictures up.  I didn't do nearly as much around the house as I have in years past.  In fact, I quickly flew through the house snapping a couple of pictures.  It's been quiet lately on the blog.  We've had a very sick grandparent (one of Eli's great grandmothers), and we've been trying to spend as much time as possible with her.  But, better late than never, right?

Here's our main Christmas tree.  It's a lot larger/rounder than what we've had in years past.  My husband actually won a contest on the radio and we received a gift card to a tree farm, which was really fun!

I love pulling out our ornaments each year.  Most of them are from vacations we have taken.  It's so fun to pull them out and reminisce.

I made our Christmas stockings with help from my mom.  I love them.  I feel like my mantle needs more, but I just never got around to doing anything else.  Oh well, trying to focus less on the stuff anyway!

My willow tree nativity is one of my favorite Christmas decorations.  It sits on the bottom of our TV stand.  Excuse the ugly cords...don't know what to do about those things.

 This is in the kitchen.  After I wrote the verse out my husband asked me if Michaels offers a chalkboard writing class like the cake class I took.  Ouch.  Haha, you'd think being a teacher I could write pretty on a chalkboard, but I guess since everything's digital now, I suppose that's not a trick of the trade anymore.

 The little thing above the chalkboard is called a swag.  Funny story, I came home from Hobby Lobby one weekend and Wesley asked me what I got.  I told him I got a Christmas swag.  He died laughing and started making up a Christmas version of that rap song.  He didn't believe it was really called that until I showed him the tag! : )

The dining room.  I love my burlap tree.  This tree is one I swiped from my sister's wedding!  She got married at Christmas time and had several trees in the sanctuary.

I saw on Pinterest an idea of doing an advent tree with 25 different names of Christ and reading Scripture on each one, so that's what I've done with this tree.  I don't know if I'll keep that up every year, but I do love it!

I love our dining room table.  The letters on the wall (Hobby Lobby) normally spell "LOVE", but at Christmas time I change it to "NOEL" (you only need one extra letter to do this)!

 Our Aubie tree (as Eli says).  I gave Wesley this tree, along with several orange and blue ornaments, 5 years ago when we were dating.  All the Auburn ornaments we've added to our collection over the years are on this tree.

The only Santa Clause we have in our house.

(Also, notice the stripes and stairs are FINALLY done!  Hubby did a good job!)

This is the tree in little man's room.  He loves it and always demands requests it to be turned on!

I bought the gray chevron fabric and was going to make a small tree skirt for it, but I was running short on time, and I think I really like it best just bunched up!

 Of course it's a sports themed tree!

This is Eli's nativity.  He loves it!

I made Eli a felt Christmas tree (or "busimess tree", as he calls them).  I wasn't sure he'd play with it, but he does!

... And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6

From our home to yours,

Merry Christmas!

Check out our past Christmases-

2011

2010

Fantasy in Lights

 Last week we took a trip to Callaway Gardens to drive through Fantasy in Lights.  It's been years since either Wesley or I had been, and I knew Eli would love it!

After seeing all the lights and exlaiming, "Ooohhh preee-tay" at each one we went to the Christmas village.

We got Christmas cookies, hot chocolate, and then called it a night and headed home.

This Christmas season has been a lot of fun with our big boy!

SANTA

Earlier this week we went to a friend's house for a little Christmas playdate, and a special visitor stopped by!

He read T'was The Night Before Christmas to Eli and all of his (20) friends.

Then, all of the kids got to take a turn on Santa's lap.  The first attempt was a major fail.  We didn't even make it all the way to Santa.  After some play time with his pal Brentley, and watching how it's done, Eli got brave.

Brave, but not really impressed.  He only did it for the candy cane that Santa was handing out to each child! : )

 We love this Santa.  Before he leaves he reads a really great poem about how he is not here to take Jesus' place, and he reminds all the boys and girls that Jesus is the focus of Christmas (and all year long), not Santa.

Merry Christmas!

O Christmas Tree (and a Santa-rant)

This weekend we went to get our first real family Christmas tree.   It's taken me a few years, but I finally talked my husband into shelling out the bucks for a real tree.  Actually, he won a contest on the radio, but whatever, I got my real tree! : )

I had in my head how this little excursion would go, and it would include us all bundled up, looking mighty Christmasy, and coming home to unload the tree and drink hot chocolate, however it was 76 degrees outside when we got our tree.  We were a little hot!

Eli enjoyed running through the rows of trees.

We finally picked one out.

Thanks to Dave's Christmas trees and Sunny 100 for the tree. : )

After lunch and nap Wesley strung the lights and then we all started decorating!

In case you didn't know, a diaper and crocs are the way to go these days!  Eli is going through a "take my clothes off" stage.  Thankfully it just seems to be at home and not in public.

I could just eat that kid up.

What happens when Eli decorates.  : )

 Love that boy!

(Yes, that's taco soup still on his face from supper.  He was too excited about the "business" tree to even get his face cleaned!)

Contemplating where to put the last few ornaments.

 

Between Facebook and Instagram, I got to noticing how many people have the Elf on a Shelf, or some variation of that.  While I think it's a cute idea, it is not something Eli will be participating in.  I don't mean that to be judgmental if you have an elf.  It really is cute.  Before now we haven't had a 'parenting strategy', for lack of a better term, when it comes to Santa Claus.  We knew we would do Santa, but not to what extent.  Now that Eli is getting a little older, those things are starting to take more shape.  I want Eli to believe in the magic, so to speak, of Santa Claus.  In fact, we're going to a friend's house next week and the big guy will be dropping by, BUT we want Santa to be a very small part of Christmas.  We're teaching Eli that Santa leaves gifts because the wise men left gifts for Jesus.  We're not doing the whole naught/nice list thing.  So that's why we're not doing the elf.  I think it plays Santa up too much.  I want our focus to be Christ, not Santa and elves.  In fact, we only have 1 Santa Clause in all of our Christmas decorations.

Ok, Santa rant over.  : )

Stay tuned to see the rest of our trees.  That's right.  We have 4.  Crazy, I know.