Christmas 'Round Here

A few weeks ago I thought it would be fun to host a Christmas Open House at our house.  I thought it would be neat to just have hot chocolate, goodies, cake, and punch and have our friends drop by throughout the night.  Keeping it low-key was important for this stressed Mama!  It turned out really great!  We had a great time and I really enjoyed having our home filled with Christmas cheer, happy, smiling faces of our friends, and good food!

So, we invite you to take a peek at our house all dressed up for Christmas!  None of our family members ever really get to see it all decked out for the holidays!  Here goes...

We had more decorations outside this year than we have had any other year.  I really have loved our little set of a buck and a doe.  They're sweet together! We have our little sled with presents on it and Jordan worked really hard on getting some lights on our little bushes.  I appreciate all the work he did to connect everything into one central location so that all I have to do is click a button on a remote!  Awesome!

We had little luminaries out to welcome our guests to our house!

My favorite part of our outdoor decorations is our sweet manger flag.  Matthew looked at it and said "baby Desus!" 

We've been working on Christmas art as part of our Advent celebration (more on that in another blog post).  The boys painted Christmas trees and then we stuck them in paper towel rolls and displayed them in our front entryway.  I also put up Christmas cards from years past and a funny picture of Matthew with Santa from last year.

I decided to make a quick, super easy coffee table centerpiece that afternoon.  I put some cranberries on this cute server and put 2 leftover "fake" candles in the center.  Hey, with kids, it's the only candles we're having anytime soon!

Jordan made a beautiful picture of our Christmas tree that I love to hate.  I pretty much hate this tree, but most years I try and tell myself it's not what Christmas is about.  It's really a lesson in patience for me and also giving to others what a new, pricey tree would cost (new trees can be PRICEY!!). It truly IS better to give than to receive.  Maybe we'll get another new, beautiful tree for next year.  Maybe we won't.  Who knows.  Either way, our boys really don't care as long as we plug that tree in everyday and feel the warm glow that comes from Christmas cheer!

Our mantle with nutcrackers, berries, lights, flickering candles, and all of our stockings hung with care.  Except for Noah's.  Lillian Vernon still hasn't shipped it to us.  Jordan's mom brought him a random one to use, so his doesn't match all of the others.

Everytime I have ordered a new stocking for a new baby I get so happy and feel so giddy.  It is so surreal to hang a 3rd stocking up on our mantle!

Here's a clustering of the boys' 3 trees.  Originally, I was going to put them in their rooms, but this just worked out better, and safer as well! We all know how Matthew can destroy a tree in no time at all!

Just a fun way to display leftover Christmas balls.

Here's everything right before everyone arrived!  We had all kinds of chocolate dipped goodies, little cheesecake bites, haystacks, lil' smokies in the crockpot, green pepepr jelly with crackers, and a yummy pound cake (Jordan's mom made it, I can't claim it!) with peppermint glaze on top!

I had some hot chocolate with candy canes ready to go as well as water, sweet tea, and a WONDERFUL punch.  It was slushy, tart and just right! 

I was only able to put out part of my Christmas village because I just couldn't find room for the rest of it.  I made this little ball wreath and it's a little "special" for sure.  I need to leave that one to the professionals!

And for fun (and also to be easy) I made a table centerpiece out of fresh fruits.  I just threw in some cranberries, cinnamon sticks, oranges, and greenery along with the pineapple.  It literally took 2 minutes to do it!

I may have to have another Holiday Open House next year.  It was so much fun and I think everyone enjoyed themselves!  Merry Christmas!