12/17/07 Christmas Tour of Homes

It’s BooMama’s Bloggy Christmas Tour of Homes Day! This is my first Tour of Homes, so I’m excited. I just hope everyone else isn’t all Martha Stewart Living with their decorations, because some of mine are more in line with A Charlie Brown Christmas. But where are my manners? Please come in!

Welcome to my humble home! This is the front porch, which I have lovingly plastered with red bows and garland. Normally, I have blue icicle lights all along the front of the house, but this year’s weather hasn’t really cooperated with the whole scooting-along-the-roof-on-my-belly-while-dragging-a-strand-of-lights thing, so they aren’t up this year. Instead, we have the garland with white lights along the railing, and in the corner (you can’t see it in the picture) is a small lighted Christmas tree. (What’s with the white cardboard taped to my house, you ask? Well, home tour or not, I didn’t think it would be prudent to show my address numbers, since internet stalkers are getting crazy smart these days. Only I couldn’t figure out how to blur the numbers out with photoshop, and even if I could, those same crazy smart internet stalkers might just be able to un-photoshop it, so I went the ghetto route with the cardboard and the tape. Ha! Outsmarted you again, internet stalkers!)


For you non-internet stalkers, please feel free to come on inside. Wipe your feet!


Here’s our Christmas tree! It’s a tradition for us to go pick out a live tree each year. We always get the Douglas fir, because it’s Tony’s favorite (and I love the smell). Our ornaments are a hodge-podge collection from our lives, from my Baby’s First Christmas and the teddy bear shapes that used to hang on my crib mobile, to the ornaments we picked out each year as kids, to the University of Tennessee balls, to our first Christmas together. It’s a sentimental journey to hang each one on the tree, and it will be fun to continue to add to them each upcoming year.


Here’s our stocking all hung on the chimney with care! I actually have mine and Tony’s turned around backwards because they have our real names on it, but I left Mason and Dixon’s facing the right way so that you could see the marvelous job I did with the glitter pen.



Here’s a full shot of the entertainment center so that you can see the nativity scene up on top. Not many people know this, but the alternate Hebrew translation for Bethlehem comes out to "above the DVD player". (Plus, it keeps them out of reach of inquiring kitty paws. Mason would think nothing of swiping the baby Jesus if he knew he was up there). My mother-in-law gave us this nativity scene the first year Tony and I were married, and I really like it.



Here’s another collection I like. It’s my little Christmas village! The tree doesn’t really go with the village…but it was my great-grandmother’s, so I thought it would be the perfect centerpiece. I only have a few pieces now, but I hope to get more when they’re all 90% off in the after Christmas sale.


What? You’ve never heard of Christmas fish before? I’m shocked. Fish looooove Christmas. I had some of those snowflake window decals, so I stuck them on the fish tank so that they could be festive too. And of course, they have their own stocking!


Merry Christmas from the fish!

BooMama wanted us to post recipes as refreshments for our Tour of Homes guests, but we don’t really cook all that much here. We do have a tradition of getting one of those Christmas popcorn tins with the three types of popcorn, so you’re welcome to share that (you have to fight Tony for it though).

So there you go. Our decorations, all up and ready for Christmas. We certainly enjoyed you visiting. Ya'll come on back anytime, ya hear?