Deck the Halls 2007

Christmas is almost here and it's more like Quinn's expertise than mine. I wouldn't know much about what the tradition is during this jolly season, but I'm learning and excited since Hazel is getting bigger & understands more about what's going on. We had our tree up, lit and decorated. We love our tree.....mostly because this year is the first year we used green-wired lights instead of white (so much better--we were so cheap since they only got white ones on sale on our first year's Christmas). And this year, we purchased the yearly ornament early not like the usual after Christmas sale purchase and we still got a decent deal for it (40% off). We got a ballerina one for Hazel since she started ballet this year and loving it.

After the tree is up, we made an eggnog cranberry bread to spread a warm smell around the house. Hazel helped me frosting it here.

We also have our little village set up. It's still needing a white batting underneath them to look more realistic. Hazel loves to play with it and rearrange them. Oh well, it's all for her anyway right?

Our other purchases for this year are the candy cane & snowman lights we put on the windows. They made me smile every time we pulled up to our home.

And my craft for this year is this advent calendar. I've been wanting one, but they're either too expensive or too busy. I just made them from Martha Stewart's library cards and lots of stickers. This also makes me smile every time I look at them.

It basically has a family activity written on the card inside the pouch for each day while counting down till Christmas. For example: write letter to Santa, build ginger bread house, drive to see Christmas lights, bake cookies for friends & neighbors, watch "Elf", etc. Two things we'll add when Hazel is a bit bigger are something like: go ice skating, watch nutcracker ballet.

It made me happy to see what everyone's decorations look like by reading your blogs. Hope this make you happy too.