Christmas Memories - 2010

In trying to decide how I'll be decorating the house for Christmas this year, I pulled out last  year's pics for inspiration. How different this year is going to be from the last. This is my first Christmas as a single empty nester - no one in the house but me as opposed to last year when the family reunion was at my house. I do want to do something special in the house for the holidays but not sure what just yet. Here are a few of the pics from Christmas 2010.

I collect Angels, Choirs and Nativities to use as my Christmas Decorations although many of them remain on display throughout the year. A number of them adorn the living room fireplace which is the first thing you notice as you enter through the front door.

In front of the fireplace is my Grandmother's Mirrored Coffee Table with various Angels and Nativities. In addition to the house I also inherited all of her furniture. I can remember this mirrored coffee table sitting in her living room when I was a little, little girl. The top shelf is glass, second is a mirror with brass legs and fittings. I always loved looking at myself in the mirror. The fireplace is on the southern side of the room and is draped in silk floral garlands of sparkly poinsettias.

 This is Angel Bell and you can just make her out in the center of the mantle. I call her 'Bell' because she is a brass bell underneath her feathered wings. I love her serene face. 

Grandfather Clock sits in the SE Corner of Living Room next to the set of double cut glass French doors which lead to the east side of the wrap around porch. My father gave my grandmother this clock as a Christmas present many years ago. I've made a small seating area in that little corner with two basket of books between the wooden chair and my mauve leather love seat which resides in front of the French Doors in the winter.

This is the west end of my Living Room with last year's tree. You can see the sparkly poinsettias garlands over the windows and the mirror.  You can also catch a glimpse of our hard wood floors which are desperately in need of refinishing but look pretty good in this shot. We rearranged the furniture for the reunion for ease of traffic flow. On the left hand side of the couch there is the second set of double cut glass French Doors which open to the formal dining room. (You can see them in the fireplace picture above on the right.) And yes, that is the original  1920's crown molding around the edge of the 10ft ceilings.

This is a better shot of the tree in the northeast corner of the room. As you can see there are a lot of windows in my living room as there are in the whole of the house.  It's a bright and cheery room especially in the mornings. One of the very first things I do after waking is to raise all of the shades so the room is filled with light.  One of the main reasons I love this house is because of all of the windows in it.  I have to admit, I love it a little less in the spring come window washing time, but that only lasts a week and the rest of the year I have all the wonderful light they let in.

As I said before, I collect Nativities and keep quite a few of them out during the year. This beautiful tree ornament hangs from the key of the Grandfather Clock all year. It's so beautiful and so delicate. I love being able to look at it every day. It's one of seven Nativities I keep in the living room year round. I'll show some more of them tomorrow along with the angels.

I'm a little behind this year. Usually I start decorating according to the family tradition of putting up the tree the weekend after Thanksgiving. Still not sure how much I'm going to do but I am starting to feel a bit energized by digging out these photos.  I would also like to hear about your holiday decorating. Is your tree up yet? Are you doing anything different this year or carrying on with traditions from before? Tell me about it. Maybe I can pick up a few ideas from you. (*wink)