Christmas in Shafferland...2019

Before I do the big Christmas reveal, I have to do the big podcast reveal! It's podcast Tuesday, and we have some turkey talk coming your way!

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I've waited as long as I can!!! Can you handle a little Christmas peek at Shafferland?

In some ways, Christmas looks pretty similar every year, because we're in the same house with (mostly) the same decorations. But I never do everything the same way twice, so today I shall unveil this year's Christmas look!

Yes, we have a tree in our kitchen. I do that because (a) I can and (b) we have this big beautiful picture window that faces the front of our house, so this is the tree people see from the street. I still love this tree so much. I have owned it for a dozen or so years, and it's still going strong! It's a tall, skinny tree that fits neatly at the end of the table and holds all my s'more and gingerbread ornaments that I've collected over the years. I throw in some red ball ornaments and red glittery sprigs just for fun, and I never get tired of this one.

(Yes, that's part of our coffee bar next to the tree. Syrups match trees, right?)

Last week I hosted my women's ministry team for dinner, and I just about melted over the cuteness of a table set for Christmas with the tree at the end!

We have just a few other decorations scattered around the kitchen, mostly above the cabinets:

(Yes, the tree on the left is made from coffee filters, but I didn't make it. It was a gift - a perfect gift!

Overall, this tree isn't new this year, but I did make a few changes in presentation. I love having a tree in our bedroom, so I can fall asleep and wake up to pretty twinkly lights. And for the last several years, the theme of that tree has been the names of Jesus. I've told you many times about Ever Thine Home and their Christmas collection of ornaments. I was so sad to find out some of their earlier sets are no longer available, because I love recommending these ornaments to everyonoe! (I actually emailed them to see if they were just temporarily out of stock, and they said no. Great sadness!) Last year, after Christmas, I bought two sets I didn't have, and now I only have two mores sets to get to have the full collection. (And now I feel like I need to hurry and get them in case they end up retired!)

I did move the tree to a different spot in our bedroom, and rather than accenting with gold balls, I used blue this year. We love this tree!

Here are a couple of the newer ornaments from collections I added this year.

Fun fact: This is Braeya's favorite tree in the house, and even if I don't have the lights plugged in, I can usually find her underneath this one!

Some of you may remember that one of our (many) Christmas traditions is getting a live tree each year. We just picked him up last weekend, and he's full and beautiful!

You might also remember that another of our traditions is to fill this tree with ornaments we've collected throughout our marriage. Our souvenir from every trip is to get an ornament from the places we visit. We also get an ornament to summarize our year, and we also keep a sliver of the trunk from every Christmas tree. We have almost eighty ornaments now that represent our 7 years together. I take a picture of every ornament and write its story on the back. As we decorate the tree, we read the stories, and that officially takes a while now!

Because it's a live tree and the branches are a bit unpredictable and unable to handle large amounts of weight, we limit the decorations on this one to lights, ornaments, and a bit of garland. (And this is the only one of our trees to sport multi-colored lights.) It looks so pretty, though!!

Some of you might have seen this on Instagram, but back at Mother's Day, we all received ornaments in memory of Ryan's mom. A woman at their church made them for all the kids in the family, and they are just beautiful. They're filled with flower petals from her funeral flowers, and pieces of her obituary and funeral program. They have bling on the outside, which was so her, and we saved that ornament for last and Ryan gave it a place of honor in the front of the tree.

We have a few other living room decorations too: stockings, nativity, family Bible, framed copies of our Christmas cards through the years, and of course...the Merrcy Hristmas sign is back. It's not Christmas without that!

I put a small tree in our guest room. This is the only white tree I have, and I accent it with red and silver. It's little and cute and brightens up the guest room!

We did have a couple of new additions to the décor this year, and the first is in the office. I have wanted a big tree in the office for several years now, and we found the perfect solution. It's big enough to be a "big tree," but small enough to not be in the way of my work. It's also my first flocked tree, and I adore it as much as I hoped I would! I've wanted a flocked tree forever! It's pre-lit, which I'm not a fan of, but hopefully it will restore my faith in pre-lit. I put gold balls and sprigs in it and called it complete - and beautiful!

I love having it keep me company while I work!

I know this has been a pretty long post, so I'm going to save my favorite part for last...come back tomorrow? It'll be worth it!