A bit of Christmas cheer!

I love decorating our house for every season, but I especially love decorating it for Christmas!  And a big part of that is because of our ornaments.  Decorating our tree has become a fun walk down memory lane for us each year.  (that's right--I said "us"--Ben even participates in this!)  Here's how we do it...

We pick out a tree (we're real tree kind of people).  And p.s., I want to find a place around here where we can actually go cut down our own tree and not pay a fortune for it.  Maybe we should just start cutting one down at my Mom's and bringing it back home from Thanksgiving.  Hmmm.  I digress.

So we get the tree home, get it in the stand, and get it watered.  The white lights go on the tree first--and we load them on there--the more lights, the better.  Then, the fun begins!  Ben unwraps each ornament and as he's handing it to me to put on the tree, we talk about where it came from, who gave it to us, what the story is behind it, etc.  (I label them with the year and the "story" when I get them so we don't forget.)  Almost every ornament on our tree has a story.  I love that!

This is the final product...

Here are some other Christmas-y pictures from our home...

The stockings over the fireplace (it's so exciting to think that there will be another stocking up there next year!  and a sweet friend has already given us a new set of stocking holders for our family of 3--plus the dogs, of course!)

Since the big tree is in our front room, I like to put a baby tree in our family room (these ornaments don't have a story, other than they are all tiny and I "stole" them from my mom!)

I even spread some Christmas cheer to the dog kennels!

This is one of my favorite things--all of our cards from friends and family!  We LOVE getting cards with photos and updates!  Can you spot yours? 



















And one last favorite thing--the lights that Ben puts up on the outside of our house!  I didn't think he would have time to do it this year because he's been working a lot of overtime (he's an amazing husband who works hard for our family!).  But he surprised me one day and put them up while I was at work and I thought he was sleeping from coming off a 48-hour shift.  Our neighbors have commented each year on how much they love our star.  I love it, too!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Love, Team Huss