Sharing Christmas 2012

I can’t resist documenting our Christmas decor from year to year – I just love how cozy and warm the house feels with all the greenery (every surface has been ‘decked’). Since we were in a new house this year, it was fun to reconfigure the decorations we’ve used in the past. We also had two great excuses to get the house all ready for the holidays – Sean’s grad grad party and my family’s post-Christmas visit!

Since we have some additional space this year, I was able to put up our ‘Angel Tree’ for the first time. Growing up, my mom and her sister had a second tree in their dining rooms that only had angel ornaments on it. Now that my sisters and I have gotten older, we have started to carry on the tradition in on our homes. A couple of years ago, I bought a scrappy-looking tree at an after-Christmas sale hoping to use it for this in the years ahead. This year, I wrapped some extra garland around it and decked it out with the half a dozen angel ornaments that we own. It’s a little bare, but I absolutely love it!

In our new place, we have more than one window in the front of our house. I loved being able to put candles in the windows and see our tree twinkling in the front.

This was also the first year that Sean and I celebrated advent. We’ve had a hand-me-down wreath for a couple of years, but this was the first December that I was able to find advent candles (and now I know where to look!) Sean, Gabby (our housemate) and I had fun lighting the candles every night and spending some time reading and praying together.

Sean was a good sport this year, and volunteered to go shopping with me the same weekend of his grad party. Even though we had already planned an extremely packed weekend, I felt like the Christmas shopping was hanging over my head. Two hours later, we had almost everything purchased (and we got all the wrapping done the next day!)

Despite our gifting head-start, I’ve managed to come up with a few more excuses to “finish” out our gifts. As we speak, I am mid-giant craft project (and our dining room table is a mess). Thankfully, we won’t be seeing my sisters until after Christmas Day, so I have a bit longer to finish up their crafty gifts.

Now that Sean is finished with school, we’ve had a couple of free nights already to sit and relax or celebrate with friends.

We are looking forward to celebrating with both sides of the family – and since my family is coming to our house – hosting our very first holiday (almost!)

I won’t force you to look at any more pictures, but I will gift you with this little gem:

Christmas Song from Our Something New on Vimeo.

Merry Christmas!

Linking up with: Bowdenisms