Elliott Times: Christmas Decorations

Ryan and Ashley setting up our Little People Manger scene that my mom bought for our kids in 2005-when Scott was 18 months old-a must have for Christmas for any family with children!

This green tablecloth I found at our grocery store for really cheap (and it's Greg's favorite color). I bought the red and green runner from a woman at the mall whose mother weaves in Baguio-a city north of Manila. I want to visit their store when we go to Baguio.

This is the artificial tree we bought-in October, I think. It looked full of holes when we put it together but decorations helped it a lot!

This is the real tree we ordered through our version of Sam's-it came from Oregon and smelled good briefly but was pretty dead when we got it. We didn't even decorate it because we were afraid if we did, there would be no needles left on it. Oh well-we know not to do that again next year!

Another engineer in the family-helping Dad with the tree lights

In Greg's family, growing up the tradition was to rotate years among the children of who put the angel on top of the tree. We bought a new star for the top of our tree here and it was Scott's turn to put it on.

Ryan and Scott with their robot ornaments-I bought these last year because their school's mascot was a robot-we miss you AJW friends!

The annual feet comparison-when Scott was born I found this neat company who etches on glass and makes ornaments of baby's footprints. We have them for all 3 of our kids and have gotten them for nieces and nephews. Greg loves having the kids compare their feet now to their baby feet to see how tiny they used to be!

Ryan put the angel on the kids small tree we brought from home.

Greenery around the doorway

When you don't have a fireplace you have to come up with someplace else to hang your stockings!

I am really enjoying using my mom's dining room furniture in our house here-it had been in storage until we came here. The ceramic nativity my great aunt Becky made for me when I was a child. The glass Christmas tree was a leftover from one year when mom and I made thousands of buckeye candies for teachers and it is not really Christmas without red, green, and silver Hershey kisses-I was glad that I found them here but they were pricey so we are savoring them.

A fabric advent calendar that I found here-thought it was fitting since we have moved around the world this year. There is a person from the USA as well as the Philippines and many other countries.

When I was growing up we had a certain way we decorated our tree every year. Daddy and I put it together. He and Mom did the lights. Mom and I put on red satin balls. Then we got out the "special ornaments". Mom and I talked about where they had each come from as we hung them on the tree. Daddy ate some of the above mentioned Hershey kisses and went to sleep in his recliner long before we were finished. The crochet snowflake along with many others and the crochet angel on our small tree were made by my sweet Aunt Todd. Snoopy as a Scout-the "Beagle Scout" is an ornament of Greg's. The red curtain hook with glitter was one that I made in K-4. The little house on the right of the picture above is from our dear friends who lived in Germany and moved back to the US just after we left-sad!

We love to collect ornaments when we do special things and travel-this is a poor picture of a moose ornament we bought on our cruise to Alaska and the pink one is from our ride on the pink pig-Atlanta Christmas train last year.

We also have several our kids have made or received-Ryan is in the large green one. My dad as a child in his first pair of overalls is toward the bottom in red and green. I have candy canes with all our kids names on them. My 4th grade teacher cross-stitched the sleigh for me and I have many that children gave me while teaching.