THE STOCKINGS WERE HUNG...

I thought I would give you a  little glimpse into our holiday decorations and our Christmas cards for this year.  It was a little tough to get motivated to decorate with a brand new baby at home, but I was excited to do it at the same time in our new house.  This is our first Christmas in the new house and it was fun to try and figure out where everything should go.  My mom recently came up to Starkville and brought a lot of her decorations and my sister and I took turns choosing the items that she no longer had room for.  So I had lots of new things.

Here is our Christmas card created and designed by the one and only J Press Designs.  We had our photo session in the fall and my plan was to get our Christmas cards out super super early BEFORE Walker came to avoid the hairy situation of him not being present in the picture.  So I had Susan print them very early and addressed, stuffed and stamped my envelopes way before Thanksgiving.  I was on the ball.  And then, Walker came.  So I quickly got on another website and used a precious picture the hospital photographer actually took and ordered Walker's birth announcements. I then opened up every single card and stuffed them with the announcement too and resealed them all.  It all worked out in the end!

The front of our card!

The back of our card!

Walker's birth announcement! I love it!

Now for the decorations! 

Top Picture: My mom paired down her very large Santa collection and allowed my sister and I to choose them alternating turns.  I love having a large group of them to display!  Left Picture: Our dining table centerpiece. Right Picture: I have wanted this white ceramic tree for a very long time and was so excited to have it this year.  My grandmother did the painting and glazing and it was always up at my mom's house so it reminds me of childhood. You also see a picture of Elle with Santa.  I display our past pictures with Santa all over the house.

Top Left Picture: A collection of pictures with Santa. Bottom Left Picture: This is the precious nativity set my mom got Elle this year.  She gets one for her every year.  I have seen these for many years but they are always sold out.  This year my mom ordered it in June so we could have it for December! I love how bright and cheery it is along with being kid friendly.  Right Picture: This is our family tree with all of our gifted and sentimental ornaments.  It is in our den so it is the one we look at the most!

This is our Mississippi State tree and I love it.  We have it one of the front windows of our house and in our dining room by the front door. I enjoy collecting ornaments for this tree.  A few years ago we started with just a tiny little table top tree and each year the tree grows!

Left Picture: Elle's Christmas Tree. Right Picture: Walker's Christmas Tree.  I just graduated to 6ft trees for each of the kids so I kept it simple this year with just a color scheme of balls.  I plan to start collecting ornaments for them each year.  

This is how I chose to display our holiday card stacks from the past years.  Not totally ideal but they are nearby (behind the sofa on a sofa table) and I have thumbed through them a lot.  I love looking at how much people change from year to year!