This is, quite possibly, my last year to play a proper Santa as my, soon-to-be, 9-year-old son is starting to ask some questions of Dear Old St. Nick.  I had to share his letter with you.  It is soooo cute.

And how about this?  Every toy name has a Registration mark! I truly laughed out loud at this!  Even Christmas is registered! 

All of this cuteness has to make its way to Santa, so I pulled out the Christmas decorations specifically to find this....

Of course, it is time to start thinking about putting up the decor, so I spent all day Saturday dragging up bins and boxes and unpacking the Christmas stuff.  I think I have about 40 bins.  I know, I might be Christmas crazy.  It is a lot of work to undecorate our every day lives and redecorate with Christmas cheer.  But... it is so worth it.  Everyone gets right into the spirit of Christmas at our house.

So, the first thing we pulled out is the Letter to Santa hanger that hangs on the front door knob.  In went the list.  I hope he doesn't think of anything else.  His list is getting $$$. 

Next we found my husband's old train and the Christmas village that my son has been collecting.  We set it up under the staircase.  See it there?

 I tried to get a few motion pictures of the train going around the track.  Not exactly what I was going for, but they turned out okay.  I also added some lomo to the photos....

 My husband still has the cardboard houses and a billboard that came with the train.  Aren't they adorable?

Next I decorated my favorite part of the house... the fireplace in the formal livingroom. 

 Those little white things pn the table below are snowflake ornaments that my grandmother made.  They remind me of her, so I put them somewhere every year.

Then the railings.  I didn't do as many this year, but I did get my advent calendar up in time. It is in the kitchen by the kids' table.

I also decorated the area near the front door with a few things.  This table usually has more on it.  I have more stuff that will end up there once the trees go up.  This little vingnette is in a corner by the guest room.

This year I moved the furniture around and put this couch over in front of the window rather than the tree.  The tree will go over by the fireplace instead.  I put lights in this window and hung a wreath in front of the curtain.  The lights show through from behind the curtain and it looks really pretty at night.

The little hanging Christmas tree ornament is one of my all-time favorites and it was beaded by my aunt Gretchen.  I love it.

These are on the other side of my living room.  A collection of music boxes.  Every kid loves to play with them.

I also decorated my Hybiscus tree.  I put pears in it and a little bird who is my partridge. 

Last but not least, I did my dining room.  It is another of my favorite spots to decorate... It is almost the same as last year.  This year, however, I plan to make a table runner for the middle of the table.  I am not done with it, however. 

Now I just have to get my trees up.  With a real tree, it behoves us to put it up a week or so later than this. Otherwise it will drop a lot of needles.  I did say I was Christmas crazy, right... well, I guess this proves it... I even decorated the cat.  Poor kitty!

Next post is sure to be the trees in our bedrooms.
Have an great week and send me links in my comments to your Christmas decor so I can check it out!

Do you have the problem I had?  Kitchen counter cluttered with school paperwork?  Books?  Backpacks?.... Ugh!  I finally came up with a solution for this huge problem at our house. 

We have a closet in our livingroom which was filled with board games and art supplies.  We never play board games.  I would like to be one of those families who sits down together and enjoys a game or two, but nobody really likes them much.  We are more of a videogaming family.  Sorry to say it!  This fact, however, hasn't stopped us from accumulating over 40 board and card games.  My 8-year-old says they are called "bored games" for a reason, Mom!  He understands that it is board... but he liked the witty play on words he came up with.

Anyway, I weeded through the games, gave some away, threw some away and stored the rest in my kids' playroom in the basement.  Now they won't get played with for sure. I should have just given them all away!

This is what the closet looked like after I removed all of the games, paper, crayons and markers. We live in a house that was built in the 70's and some of the decor which still exists makes that obvious.  Like this lovely panelled closet.  I was told it was once a wet bar... this is made obvious by the lovely pipe sticking out of the wall.  LOL!  Perhaps some day we will turn it back into a wet bar? 

 

These shelves were all wonky and some of them were chipboard and were bowing.  They are held up by those little tracks that you put the clips in.  I went to Lowes looking for some new shelving, but really didn't want to spend much money.  Shelving for a large closet like this is EXPENSIVE!  So, I took the tracks down from this closet, took them outside and spray painted them black.  I also threw out the chipboard shelves and used the plywood ones again.  They were cut to the right size and in pretty good shape.  I asked my husband to buy some half-round edging and added that to the edges of these boards and it made them look awesome.  I painted each shelf black and pained one with black chalkboard paint.  I used that one for the desk in this room!  The boys can write on it with chalk. 

I painted the walls yellow because I wanted to keep it nice and bright in there.  It also goes nicely with colors in the livingroom.

Here you can see where it is. 

Here you can see the chalkboard desk.  Perfect for doing your homework!  Also, I bought 9 bins at Walmart to create a unifom look on the shelves.  These are labeled and hold all of our notebooks, folders, book covers, Mom's homework, etc!

Here you can see the other side.  I asked my husband to build a bench so the boys can sit in there and read their books in peace and quiet if they would like to.  I made the cushion and the pillow case.  I searched for a cushion form and they were so expensive!  So, one day I was at Walmart and noticed the bed egg-crate toppers were only $10!  I bought a twin-sized one, cut it into the size I needed, doubled it, and stitched them together.  I then made a plaid cover for it.  It is just what I needed!  The pillow forms were also more than I wanted to spend, so I went to the bedding department and found that the pillows were only $2.50!  So, I took one of those and made a cover for it.  It is nicer and fluffier than the pillow forms anyway!

The shelf below the bench fits both backpacks perfectly!

With the extra twin egg crate pieces, I made padding for a chair I had in the basement.  My husband also put a light on the wall above the desk.  The electric box was already there, so we were able to connect easily.  

 I also pulled out some bins and filled them with all of the pencils, erasers, markers and note pads, etc that we had in a drawer in the kitchen.  Perfect!

This was a picture frame with glass that I had sitting around in the basement.  I used some shelf liner I had (the yellow stripe) and some black cardstock to create a background inside the glass.  I also put the photos under the glass. We can now use white board markers and jot notes each night so we remember what we need to take/do the next day.  My son's schedule is also taped to the glass.

 Inside the door, we have a white board calendar also.  I glued magnets where I needed them so it would stick to the metal bars already in place.  Works great!

See those backpacks!  Yeah!  Much better than in my kitchen every night!

Okay, well that is it.  Repurposing this closet has made our lives easier and much more organized.  Hope it gives you some ideas of your own!

Are you hosting a barbeque?  Are you going to one?  We were going to have a party, but decided against it because we are heading to NY City tomorrow.  I can't wait!  I think we are going to focus on SoHo and TriBeca.  Any suggestions of places to go with two boys ages 8 and 10?

Anyway, I did decorate my table in my screened-in porch, so I'll share that with you.  I also made a cake with some decorating help from my little guys.  I love the way it turned out.  So homemade looking.  Sometimes it is nice to just get everyone's hands in there and make something that was "made by me".

Admittedly, the tablecloth is a bit much, but I thought it looked really kitchy and fun.  The pillows and napkin rings and the banner were made by me.  Most of the other place setting stuff was found either at a thrift or a dollar store.  Including the $3 tablecloth.  Love that!

Happy 4th!