The House is (mostly) Decorated

Christmas is, by far, my favorite holiday. I love nearly everything about the holiday - the lights, the trees, the smells, the TV specials, the food. And, I love Christmas decorations, as well. I don't particularly love setting up the decorations, although, it's far from my least favorite task.

In normal years, decorating takes about 4-5 days -- 1 day for the inside, 1 day for the tree, 1-2 days for the outside and 1 day for the Christmas village; about 100-125 pieces that take up about 5 banquet tables. This year and last year I haven't been inspired enough to set up the village (which has gotten so large as to not really have a home anymore -- four years ago, it was in the dining room; three years ago, it was in a spare bedroom; and two years ago, it was in the basement. Ideally, I'd like to set it up in the garage, with a plexiglass barrier, so I could open the garage door and allow visitors to view the village; but plexiglass, especially plexiglass of that size, costs money....

Anyway, here are some of the pictures of this year's decorating extravaganza....

A view of the front of the house - three rows of lights hanging from the gutters.

Another view of the front, with a full flash. The lights on the right-hand side change from blue to white and back again.

The left-hand side of the house, with more lights along the windows and five different pathway lights -- candy canes, snowmen and presents.

A close up of the window -- eventually, the tree will be visible from here, as well.

The stockings and fireplace decor.

Even the TV stand isn't immune from being infiltrated by the Christmas decorations.

The more casual kitchen table, with a snowman tea set and a boatload of candy.

The dining room table, which will be the site of Christmas Eve dinner (right now, it's not completely decked out,
because we have clumsy company coming next weekend!) :)

One of the Advent calendars (monogrammed with little presents you place on the tree to show which "day" it is;
as well as our (still fairly bare) Christmas card holder, to the left.

The second Advent calendar. Yes, that's right, I have two -- it's just how I roll.

Charlotte is nonplussed by the attention paid to decorating -- in general, she's happiest when this is all over.
She doesn't get it.