Christmas Spirit

Our celebration of Rebecca’s birthday yesterday included going out to dinner and a visit to the Festival of Lights, as we’ve done on her birthday for the last 4 years.  If you’re in the area, I’d highly recommend seeing the Festival of Lights – it’s only $5 a car/van.

So now we have celebrated the birth of our baby and we’re in the proper mood to celebrate the birth of another baby.  As I type, we are listening to the audio book of The Autobiography of Santa Claus, so I’m feeling festive.  Here’s a quick tour of just some of the decorations around our house.

Here is our Advent Wreath which we made as a family at an workshop put on by our parish.  It sits on our buffet table, next to our dining room table.  Right behind it is what looks like a painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe, but it’s not a painting, but a puzzle!  We bought it in Cozumel last year.

Speaking of world travels, Philip and I bought these nesting Santas in France on our honeymoon.  I made the Santa standing in the back when we lived in Arizona.

I made this star when I was 2.  What craft talent I had even then!

I found this ornament at Disneyland.  There is a Christmas store in New Orleans square, right near the exit of Pirates of the Caribbean.  We stopped in there, either right before or right after eating at the Blue Bayou, our favorite Disney restaurant.  I was pregnant with Pumpkin Girl at the time.  She arrived just after Christmas that year, but I hung this ornament on the tree when she and I came home from the hospital before the New Year.

This is the White House Christmas Tree ornament from 2001.  We have one from each year we’ve been stationed in DC: 2000, 2001, 2005-2007.  We still need to get this year’s.

My itty bitty Santas.  The one on the left is a Lego Santa that came with a tube of toothpaste sometime when I was in high school.  I think I bought the star Santa and the pencil Santa at a little country store in Kentucky.

Bip saw a Santa lotion dispenser in a magazine and insisted that he needed one.  He asked about it every day until I went online in search of one like the one he saw.  I found this one at the Sears website, on sale.  Bip loves it!  It’s hard to see in the picture, but his beard is glittery.

I have a side light window next to my front door.  These Santas greet you when you walk up to my house. I painted them when we lived at Ft Leavenworth, KS.

I took these pictures at random, whatever struck my fancy as I walked through our house.  As I described them here, I realized that so many of our Christmas decorations reflect the travels of our lives.  Everything has a story.  I’ll have to tell more of them next year.

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