I found great joy in decorating my home for Christmas. I unpacked things I had not used in several years and appreciated them once again. I enjoyed hanging mercury ornaments, I had purchased some years ago at an auction with my dad, on my dining room light fixture to highlight them. They are so unique. I bought ten dollar fresh wreaths and collected treasures from our yard and dressed up the wreaths with holly, pines, firs, berries, pinecones, dried orange slices, and various other evergreens. Amazing difference and didn’t take much time or money. I made a little button garland with old buttons.

My keeping room mantel had a collection of vintage bottlebrush trees and old santas and snowmen covered in domes. I love the jolly faces of the old santas. They are so perfect. 

I bought this owl from Target. I went back and looked at him twice. He was in the Smith and Hawkins section and was $20. I had the checkout guy double bag him. I brought in the bag so the boys wouldn’t break him and when I set him down he fell over and his ears clipped a bowl and broke off. Shattered actually. I cried. Kevin had a great idea of putting a hat on him!! I found a lady on Etsy who knits doll hats and bought my owl a $6 toboggan. Isn’t he cute? Sad story saved.  On instagram I follow this very creative lady who was cutting shapes out of books to hang for decorations and it inspired me to cut out state maps to put on our packages this year from an old atlas I have. I cut out the state of where that person was born and put a gold star on the city they were born. I printed out the outlines from the web and it didn’t take long at all. It was quite fun and I learned a few things about my friends I didn’t know.

There is always a cat in the basket under the tree. I was going to put packages in it but…

I filled pitchers with rosemary and lined my long narrow oak kitchen table with these and scattered red and white christmas bulbs. Simple. 

My mom and I put together these little villages from a kit (that didn’t include roofs) that we bought last year. We had a wonderful day of gluing, glittering and embellishing. Sadly the kit is no longer available. 

I have this wonderful collection of Russian Santas from my Dad’s mission travels there. I have not had them out for several years and I loved setting them out and adding one from my trip last year with him. They are wonderful pieces of art. 

I hope you enjoyed stopping in to see some of my Christmas happiness. If you missed my post about the Red Christmas Ball Ornament or even if you did I have added a few pictures and a wonderful addition to the story. Thank you for reading and I love hearing from you.

Merry Christmas

Katey

Leaving you with this photo I took of an old tree topper I found this year and a quote I found.