Deck the Halls

To say I'm a little obsessed with Christmas is a bit of an understatement.  I love decorating and creating memories around the holiday.  Now that we are celebrating the holidays with Mara, this obsession has reached an all time high.  Yes I know she will not remember this year.  No I do not care.  :)

The day after Thanksgiving, we pulled out all the decorations and got to work.  The first thing on the agenda were the two trees.  Josh has an amazing silver tree that was his grandma's.  This thing is an antique!  It even has the rotating color wheel that shines blue, red, orange and green on the tree as it spins.  My tree is more traditional and we decided to put it in the dining room.

I love having the two trees and being able to fill both with special ornaments.  We decided to start a tradition of getting a new ornament each year of something memorable that happened that year.  This year our ornament centered around our Mara girl and how blessed we feel to have her in our lives.  I even got a little crafty and made some salt dough ornaments with her hands and feet in them so we can have a physical reminder of how little she was.

Besides the trees, I wanted to Christmas-fy the mantle, tables and other random places around the house.  A friend and I went out one morning and scoured the shops.  I was pleasantly surprised with how affordable it was.  Most of the decorations I bought were half off and if you want to be a little crafty, its cheaper to make most of the things rather than buy them.

Here are some of my favorite touches from around the house:

Overall I am in love with the touches of Christmas around the house.  They remind me of what the focus of the holiday really is, the birth of our Savior.  In years to come I hope Mara loves decorating for the holidays as much as her mama and appreciates the traditions we have started as a little family of three.

Happy Holidays!!