Decorations!

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On the Tenth Day of Christmas, My True Love Gave to Me...

Christmas Decorations

I cannot believe it is already the 23rd of December. I'm writing the majority of the blog around one in the morning on the 23rd while I watch videos on YouTube, read, and knit washcloths. I have two to finish by tomorrow night, for my coworkers so I'll show pictures eventually. But onto the good stuff, my Christmas decorations!

First of all, I live in an apartment, it's small and this is only the second Christmas we've celebrated together on our own so decorations are sparse but we're slowly amassing things. This year we added two new sets of lights for the tree, a new star, and a hook to hang a wreath on our front door. With those additions came a wreath and the migration of our old tree lights to the game shelves. 

Let's start with the tree. We went out into the national forest out here for our tree. Lucky for us here in Oregon we can buy a permit for a nominal fee and go out onto public lands and cut our tree (within certain parameters). We spent about an hour trudging through the snow and finally found a tree: my son loved the snow but I was less excited about it. 

For our Christman decorations we have gone with blue and white, especially for lights/ornaments. So here's our tree all decorated. 

Most of our ornaments are just round baubles in blue and silver, some with sparkles and some without in two sizes. We also have candy canes on the tree and our star is brand new this year. Actually, the star is kind of cool it's an LED star and changes colors. In addition to the blue and silver balls, we have a handful of special ornaments:

A wooden dog ornament for Emma.

A baby reindeer for Ryder's first Christmas last year.

Then there's the imprints we made of Ryder's hand and foot for Christmas last year in this foam clay stuff.

Our family of penguins: baby, daddy, and mommy: we bought these for our first Christmas as a family

A Santa dice our friend Gabby made. 

The ship Serenity from the show Firefly

A glass bauble with a set of mini dice inside, also made by Gabby. 

A yo-yo style ornament with a dungeons and dragons theme giving you a "+1 for holiday cheer", again made by Gabby.

Those are our special ornaments. We have a wreath on our main apartment door.

There's the lights on our game shelves (most of which belong to our roommate):

And then we have our little knickknacks around.

Our table behind the couch with its Christmas stuffies.

Christmas Pusheen stuffie with a mug of hot cocoa and a little Santa hat.

Our bigger squishy gnome stuffie next to the perpetual calendar. 

The ceramic candy cane house that belonged to my grandmother. My mother has one too and she allowed me to take this one home with me this year. 

Christmas Pusheen vinyl figurine wrapped in Christmas lights. 

A blue dinosaur with a Santa hat that plays "Jingle Bells" and is my son's favorite. 

Clarisse from Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer that my dad got me from the Build-a-Bear at Disneyland on the hall bookcase. 

Finally we have the crowning glory of our Christmas collection: the stockings I made for the whole family last year. 

All four stockings hung by our gas fireplace.

Ben's stocking with a deer and pine tree design. 

My stocking with a love bird motif

Ryder's stocking with a candy motif, featuring gingerbread men, gingerbread houses and candy canes.

Emma's stocking with her name and paw prints/bone motifs. 

I knit all four stockings last year by hand while I was on maternity leave after having my son and I am very proud of them and how they turned out. 

So those are our little Christmas decorations around our little apartment. Nothing major but cute and festive. We'll continue to add through our time together and the next things I want to get are lights for the cabinet behind the couch and some lit garland for the fireplace. 

Happy Reading!

Richelle