Better late than never...Christmas 2014

I wanted to share a little bit of my Christmas with you, just a few photos.  I love Christmas but I hate the mad rush to get everything around and then it's over...at least for most families.  I still have my Christmas tree up and I don't know when I will take it down.  The main color scheme is red and white so maybe it will be up at Valentines, joking...I hope.

Here is my little Christmas village.  I built this several years ago from a Greenleaf kit.  You get a lovely view of my neighbors home in the background and a view of my unfinished porch but the main attraction is the houses.  Normally the village goes on my mantle but this year I had to do something different because of the placement of the tree.  The Happy Holidays sign was a thrift store find for $.69.  I think it's vintage but if it's not I still love it.  This was the first time I have displayed the sign even though I've had it for a couple of years.

 Santa came to visit us this year.  I guess I was a good girl.  My nephew insisted on dressing up as Santa so I found an old suit and pinned it to fit him.  He wouldn't put a pillow underneath to give himself a belly but I think I love this svelte Santa the most.  A lot of people got pictures of this Santa for Christmas from my Nephew.  I was trying to teach him that giving is better than receiving but I'm not sure that idea stuck this year.  His older brother certainly didn't want to get gifts for others and wanted the money to be spent on himself.  We are working on him.

 Some pictures of our tree and our outdated color palette for out living room, hopefully it will get a make over this year.  I have some vintage and modern ornaments in red, white, and glitter on the tree...glitter is a color right?  I definitely did not stage these photos.

 Christmas was hectic this year.  I paid an agency to wrap my presents this year because I knew I wouldn't have time to do it myself and I didn't want to be up late on Christmas Eve wrapping gifts, guess what I was up till 3:30 am wrapping my mothers gifts.  I am not doing that next year, it made me very tired Christmas day.  The money I paid to have my gifts wrapped went to a nonprofit agency who took donations.  I only wrapped a few gifts of my own this year.

 Now I want to show you my favorite Christmas ornament.  It's kind of gory and makes me laugh.  It doesn't belong to me but I look forward to seeing this on my fathers tree every year.  My brother made this ornament for my father years ago in wood shop.  It is a dove, the symbol of peace, with a dead deer on it, blood coming out of the doves orifices and the words "I love my Dad."  Don't get me wrong I'm not promoting killing things but the combination of the dove with the dead dear makes me laugh,

Well that was a small snapshot of Christmas 2014 at my house.  I hope you all had a Happy, Joyous Christmas. 

 Our Christmas was bitter sweet this year.  My cousin, a young, amazing mother of 4 passed away.  She suffered a major heart attack, at the age of 36.  The family celebrated her 37th birthday in the hospital and after Christmas had to make the hard decision to remove life support.  She passed away surrounded by her family and their love.  When something like this happens it makes you question God and why this happened.  It also made us all understand that life is short and you should always let those closest to you know how much you love and appreciate them because you never know when they could be taken away from you.  Our family is dealing with their grief in different ways but for the most part the family has been remembering all the good moments, laughing, and celebrating her life and trying not to be sad.

I hope everyone has a Happy and Safe New Year in 2015!