A Scrooge in the house

I'm a bit of a scrooge at Christmas.. go ahead and gasp in horror all you ladies out there. It's okay. I deserve it! I don't know what it is, but I just get so frustrated at Christmas.


Mainly because it seems this holiday has become SO focused on presents, decorations and going going going that EVERYONE has lost the true meaning of Christmas. That our good and gracious God sent his one and only Son down from Heaven to pay for OUR sins. Moms, can you imagine giving up one of your children to save everyone else? Since becoming a parent God has really made me realize what a sacrifice He made by giving us his Son.



My second issue with Christmas is all the decorations. Now, don't get me wrong I love Christmas decorations I just have never been very good at it. So, it makes me mad that my house doesn't look like a Christmas Southern Living magazine cover. Not even close to it! I've had every style of Chrsitmas decorations in this house you can think of. We've done blue and silver, country style and gold. I guess I thought if I settled into a theme I'd get more into it and be willing to spend money on decorations that are only up for three weeks, but no such luck. And none of the styles looked very good anyways.

Well, last year I finally decided I'd pick a theme, go with it and start adding to it SLOWLY every year so I don't get so worked up about it. And that way I can get nicer things without breaking the bank and eventually I might have my own magazine cover Christmas. I admit it was fun to pull out some of the Christmas ornaments I bought last year to go with my new theme. And it was so sweet and precious to pull out Legree's baby's first Christmas ornaments from last year and hang them up.



This year I finally comitted to a tree skirt as my addition to our decorations. It matches my theme perfectly. Now for the big revel on the theme.... Red, green elfish like theme. Make sense? Probably to no one else but me! But most of our ornaments are red and green and a lot of elf like touches. I didn't want anything formal or to out there, so I thought this was perfect, cute, whimsy and fun for the kiddos.


So, here's some pictures of my favorites:


All of our initials are on the tree... they are all B's and L's and one lone W (Ben's middle initial).






Legree's 1st Christmas ornament, baby booties!




The REAL reason for the season..



I found this guy last year when we went to AL to see my newest nephew for the first time. We stopped at a mall to give Legree some time out of the car seat on the way home. We went into Macy's because I had never been in one before and I found this little guy 60% off. He was my inspiration to pick and stick with the elf theme! He's so cute and fun! And you pull his string and his arms and legs jump up and down.


And as I was looking at our Christmas tree this year after I got all the decorations up I noticed a tradition that I'm going to stick to every year... we have one thing from every Christmas that was not supposed to be an ornament that I have made into an ornament. Last year Ben's mom attempted to crochet Legree a hat for Christmas at my request. It didn't quite turn out as expected. But it made the perfect little topper for our elf like Christmas tree. And it has a good story behind it at least! From the year before I had gotten Kilo a little elf hat thinking it'd be funny on her. Well, she wouldn't wear it, but it fits perfectly with our Christmas tree now.

Here's a picture of Kilo's hat that is now an ornament. And our finished Christmas tree with the crocheted hat. (Oh and the empty bottom potion of our tree is to keep Legree from pulling all the ornaments off)




And it did make matters a lot more fun and easy for me with the cutest little helper around....





So, this year I am going to try and embrace the fun of Christmas and not be such a bah-hum-bug about it!