Twice The {Decorating} Fun

Welcome to everyone visiting from Kelly's Korner today. I appreciate you taking the time to drop by and look around. If you are not one of my regular readers, you won't know that I am Christian and my husband is Jewish. This means we get to have twice the fun when decorating for holidays. Since Chanukah falls right around Christmas this year (December 16-23), our decorations are overlapping in the extreme!

Outside I have put greenery in our window boxes and a mix of ornaments. I also hung a bunch of ornaments on our tree out front, and if this past year is any indication, they will out there until March! We don't have a lot of snow, yet, but it will likely come and I won't be able to get out to take the ornaments off the tree until it melts.

Our office, which looks out into the playroom (the playroom was an addition built on to the back of the house so we're special enough have a window inside our house!) has the Chanukah star banner which was a creation of mine and my husband. He folded all the stars and I had the original idea. Our window ledge in here is also where we keep some of our cards.

Our living room reflects our interfaith life with a Chanukah banner, the menorah, and our nativity set all displayed.

The nativity set is one I bought when I lived in Israel-Palestine and I actually gave it to my parents and never did buy one for myself. A couple of years ago my parents decided to give it to me and I'm so thrilled they did. I let my kids, five year old Sam and three year old Rachel, set it up, so it isn't precise in any way! And the menorah was a wedding gift to Dave and I from his grandparents. It's so beautiful.

A few years ago I got some free Christmas material and I had a plan for it, which you will see later on in this post. But then I had extra material and so I made a random fabric string. Thus far it has been looped on our stair rail and Sam wanted to hang ornaments on it. I think it's kind of fun!

Sam has his own Christmas tree in his room which he gets to decorate however he wants to. He also got Chanukah window gels this year and decided to display them so that "Chanukah" could be read from the street!

Rachel also has her own tree and Chanukah window gels in her room, as well as her own unique decorating sense! I love giving the kids the freedom to decorate in their rooms however they want :)

Our dining room looks festive with the Advent wreath, our Advent calendar and my fabric light string on the window. My parents are visiting us for Christmas this year, and once they arrive we will go cut down our Christmas tree together and decorate it. Then it will be in this room too!

I love our Advent calendar, which my friend, Janice, gave to me this year. It has a word describing this season for every day. I don't want my kids to think Christmas is all about eating chocolate so I'm glad this doesn't have that option. Also, Rachel randomly opened a bunch of doors one day, so there are more doors open than there should be!

I made our Advent wreath and with the greenery and carnations it looks a lot like what my mom used to make when I was growing up. And yes, we're re-using our candles from last year two years ago.

This is what the dining room looks like when the fabric light garland is lit. I got this idea from a SUYL a few years ago and it's what I originally made with the Christmas fabric I mentioned earlier. I love how it decorates the window and gives a warm glow to the room.

And even though this is a picture from last year, I wanted to show my new favourite Christmas "decoration" -- Christmas potpourri. I got the idea from my blog friend, Allison. I slice half an orange, add some whole cloves, whole cranberries, a couple of cinnamon sticks, and some water, and then simmer it all day. It makes our whole main floor smell so good. I haven't started this year's batch yet because I know I'll just want to keep it going until Christmas so I'm trying to hold off until this weekend but then LET THE CHRISTMAS POTPOURRI BEGIN!!! (Can you tell I'm just a little excited about this?!)

So even though our tree isn't up, and we don't hang our stockings until Christmas Eve, and we haven't yet lit the menorah, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, and Chanukah, around here.

Thanks again for stopping by. Merry Christmas! Happy Chanukah!