A Patriotic Christmas

As many of you know, I love doing themed trees! The kids begged to do the "patriotic tree" this year. Since we have so many friends and family who are deployed this year, I thought it would be a great reminder for us to pray for them when we look at our Christmas tree. 

Notice there are two little trees in the background? I bought each of the kids their own tree (let them pick out the colors - yep they chose pink and blue) so they could each decorate their own and leave the family tree alone ;o). So far it has worked great! It was strange decorating the whole tree this year. We've always had our tree stuffed in the corner and with the new layout of our house, we were able to have it in front of a window and even get a train around it. So nice!

I tried experimenting with my little snapshot camera to get some of the lights. It looked a little better, but certainly not the look I was going for. Sigh. This is part of my Christmas village. The kids love to arrange and rearrange the figures.

Here is a picture of our dining room table all decked out. I'm not a table cloth person, but I love this one and use it during the Christmas season. That ugly bookshelf is about to go away. My grandma is giving me her nice hutch, I'll use it as a fancy bookshelf, since Michael will eventually construct a built-in china hutch for me.

I've always wanted a mantle and this is why! I now have a place for our nice nativity scene (our kid friendly one stays on the coffee table) and an old family bible. Also, I wasn't sure where to put the jewelry tree and I discovered that it looked great on top of the old accordion case stabilized with a heavy antique book of bible stories opened to a picture of Jesus's birth.

The new covered entryway also ended up being a fun space to decorate. Don't mind the rock salt in the corner!

Here is a close up pic of our very busy patriotic tree. I love busy trees! The round red and white ornament was one I made in Kindergarten.

Here are my two all time favorite Christmas decorations. They look pretty empty here because we had just started when I took these pictures, but to the left is my new Jesse Tree and to the right is the Waiting Tree. Both are the same idea and have many of the same bible stories associated with them, all leading up to the Christ's birth. It is nice to have two trees because now the each child gets to put an ornament on every day. 

This is a close up of some of the ornaments on my Jesse Tree. My friend, Laurie, hand-painted each rock ornament. On the back is the bible story reference. They are beautiful and very artistic. Each ornament hangs on a button. She quilted the tree, too. I feel very blessed to have purchased the first one she ever made. 

I love it when people post their decorations on their blogs. It is so much fun to see what people come up with, especially how they convey the true meaning of the season to their children. 

God Bless,

Jackie