A little more Christmas!

Over the years I've accumulated several Christmas houses... this picture shows a few of them... I have 5 more that I have on a shelf above a window that I leave out all year long. I began getting these home in the late 80's when I directed the choir at the church I attended at the time. Each year, following the Christmas Cantata, they group presented e with a different church....

Later on, my family got in on the act... the picture below was the addition that Carly gave me last year. I love the fact that you can actually see a lady inside the kitchen cooking! And Mickey gave me the "newspaper guy" when I still had The Good News Monthly. I've also got a school house, a Fire/Police Station, a long cabin and an Antique store. Carly is the main giver of houses now... I love getting them.... and someday I'm going to have to expand the display area!!!

And I LOVE putting up our christmas tree... we make a point of buying ornaments on EVERY vacation that we take. So as we are putting up the tree, we have fun talking about where we got the ornament, and the memories we made on that trip. We have a Micky and Minnie from our Disney trip... we have Panda from our recent DC Trip... where we went to the National Zoo to see their Panda exhibit. We have ornaments from our Gatlinburg trip, our Myrtle Beach trip, a Hershey Kiss from our Pennsylvania trip... you get the picture....

But I also have some ornaments that have been on the tree for YEARS!!! Like the ones below... My mom got me these handpainted angels when the girls were little. One to represent each girl.... they have had a place at the top of the tree ever since.....

When Michael came along we had to one one for him.... so since his FAVORITE character is the Gingerbread Man from the Shrek movies, we purchased this ornament just for him. He LOVES to put it up each year..... and the little angel beside it... that is Carly's as she played the Sax for several years....

While we were in China getting Michael, we purchased this angel....

And we ornaments for each of the grands.... plus ornaments that we have purchased with the addition of each one... there is an ornament for our exchange student, Sara... which we still place on the tree each year.... and the ornament below we purchased as a reminder of Kishsnider, the young boy we sponsor through World Vision. We have faithfully sponsored him for years now.... it has always been so much fun to receive updates and pictures.....

We have ornaments that were gifts, ornaments that wqere "created" by our children, and I have an entire bag of ornments that we no longer use that I will be keeping because of the memories that they hold. As I look at our tree I am reminded of so many memories... each of which are a part of our holiday season.... and it makes me smile.

If you get the chance to share a little about your holiday memories or traditions, let me know... I'd love to read what you have to share.

Have a blessed Christmas season!