Outdoor Christmas Lights

Christmas is the one time of the year that brings joy to so many people! With all of the preparation, shopping, and planning, the Christmas Season can also bring stress!

We love decorating for Christmas and we have so many decorations. This year to simplify and make it less stressful, we only put a fraction of our décor out, and love the simple look!

The one thing I miss is our out door lights like we did a couple of years ago. We put lights on the whole house! This year we only have lights on the lower part of the house and some of the bushes. It was just too dangerous to have my hubby or boys climb all the way up to the high peaks of the house. I was going through old pictures and thought I would share them with you.  

Do you put Christmas lights out?

Do you go crazy with decorations?

You may enjoy seeing some of our other Christmas posts!

You may enjoy seeing some of our other Christmas posts!

DYI Christmas Ornaments

Our Christmas Tree  (I can’t believe how different our décor was a few years ago)

A Merry Christmas Letter and Pictures  Dec 2011

Parents of a Dozen: Our Christmas Décor! (This is one of the years we went all out on our decorations!) 

Dec 2012

Parents of a Dozen: A Simple Way to Wrap Gifts!

Tip #14: 10 Ways to Save Money During the Holiday Season

Parents of a Dozen: Super Easy Delicious Chocolate Pretzel Cookies

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Doug and Sharon Heasley(Parents of a Dozen)

Our Christmas Décor!

I started this post before Christmas, but never finished it. Since the 12 days of Christmas starts on Christmas day I am going to still post a few thing over the next week or so.

Here is our family room, empty from all our other décor, with our new real tree ready for our Christmas decorations. We have boxes and boxes of Christmas decorations in our attic, most of which we did not use this year.

Super Easy Delicious Chocolate Pretzel Cookies

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This is one of our favorite Christmas cookies! They are easy to make, are always a hit, and the kids love helping. Although we usually eat healthier, we do splurge once in a while!

Tip #14: 10 Ways to Save Money During the Holiday Season

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Finally here is another tip to save money and get out of debt. With Christmas not far away we thought we would post on how to save money on shopping and entertaining during the season. If you are like us and have a lot of people you have (or think you have) to buy for, you may be buying or spending more than you have too.

A Simple Way to Wrap Gifts!

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We are wrapping the Christmas gifts that we put under the Christmas tree this year with brown packaging, wrapping paper. I like the simple and pretty look of these gifts.

A Merry Christmas Letter and Pictures

First of all we hope everyone had a very, Merry and Blessed Christmas. We would also like to thank all of our readers and Shaklee customers for their support and business, and pray that everyone has a Happy New year.

Our Christmas Tree

 
We decided to go with a real Christmas tree this year, the first time in the 27 years we have been married. We asked for some advise on what kind of tree to buy and we did some research. We decided to go with a Fraser Fir because it is supposed to be the best. They keep their needles on the longest and have stronger branches than most to hold up ornaments. Plus the branches are spaced enough so there is room to hang ornaments. We did not want to spent a lot of money so we went to Home Depot to get one. The worst part was you really couldn’t see what it was going to look like, because it came with all the branches in the up position. We couldn’t even pull the branches down because they were frozen. One of the sales persons then cut the bottom for us and wrapped it.
 
Once we unwrapped the tree and put it in the stand we had to let the branches thaw and drop.

This year we went with silver and red glittery ornaments. Most of them I got from my daughter the others I got from garage sales or the children made. I thought the red tied the other red accents I have in my other Christmas decor. (red twigs and berries)



The next two ornaments are ones that my children made for a St. Nicholas Day craft. You could see how here.
  
This is the tree decorated. I think the shape turned out nice for a Home Depot  tree. I think we paid $36.00.
      
Our old tree we decorated and put in our basement. As you could see it is mostly gold and cream glittery. The advantage of using a artificial tree is you could move the branched to fit certain ornaments.

 







I am linked up to http://cottageandvine.blogspot.com/2010/12/2010-christmas-tour-of-homes.html

Christmas Ornaments

I did a craft the other day with the children. We made these two ornaments. They first made them at a St. Nicholas craft day with their school group. I really like how they went with the other ornaments I have and the children really like having ornaments they made on the tree.





These are the supplies we used. (Sorry about the color I had the camera on the wrong setting.)
   
We cut these from old Christmas cards.
   
We took the cup cake tin and flattened it. Then you glue a round piece of card stock and ribbon on one side and the picture on the shinny side.
 
Then spread School Glue on top of the picture, and finally sprinkle clear glitter over the glue and let it dry.
  
This pine cone ornament is even easier. First tie a ribbon with a hook on the top. Then spread glitter glue on the edges. I like these because they add a natural but sparkly look to the tree.

           





     
 
I will show you more of the tree later. What kind of ornament have you made?

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