it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Oh how I love Christmas decorations!  I always have them up by the end of November, and this year I got started even earlier than normal with almost everything done before Jeff's birthday.  The only thing left was decorating the tree, which had to wait until I bought new lights as our old ones finally bit the dust.  I love how the bright led lights look on the tree.

The kids were very excited to get started on decorating.  When I put the decorations away after Christmas I always make sure to keep a kid-friendly bin...all their homemade decorations (which they so love seeing on the tree) along with other non-breakables.  They just love digging in and getting the tree started. 

My tree is definately a family tree - no perfect matchy matchy tree here.  I love looking at it and remembering where each decoration came from...the star I bought when Jeff and I were in Germany, my baleek porcelain christmas tree from Mary (my mother-in-law), the little drummer boy which hung on my mother's tree when she was a child, decorations made by the kids over the years and of course my ever growing collection of Disney ornaments from our trips.

Now I just need to get some presents under there.  My closet currently looks like an episode of hoarders because it's packed full with my holiday shopping (I'm almost done, yay!).

My favourite - stockings hung on the mantle...