BeautyRevealed | The Blog of Melissa J. Dillon

“He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree.”

Roy L. Smith

I have been very s.l.o.w.l.y decorating for Christmas this year. One night we got the tree… the next night we tackled the lights… a couple of days later we put the decorations on. Yesterday I finally put the wreath on the door. It has been a process this year. But it has been nice. Just laid back and care-free. Mark and I picked out the tree in about 2 minutes… we were really cold and we both just said, “good enough”. I don’t even think we got a proper look at it (It was tall and not too wide, so it fit our requirements). We got it home and we both love it. Mark trimmed a bit off the bottom before he brought it in, and when he stood it up he started to laugh. It was literally a ½ inch from the ceiling. It was perfect… no tree-topper this year, I guess. Simple. I like it. 

The kitties think that we brought in the tree just for them, I think. Pouncer tries to climb it (not very well since he has no claws!) and SweetPea takes her naps on the tree skirt. No ornaments have been broken yet and we’re crossing our fingers. 

Mark’s sister, Rachel, got us these Santa mugs for Christmas a couple of years ago. It is a Dillon household tradition to drink hot chocolate from Santa mugs when decorating the tree. I love this tradition and look forward to passing it on to our children as well. His mom has all kinds of antique Santa mugs and we usually fight over which one we get. 

Maybe next year we’ll have a fireplace on which to “hang our stockings with care”! This year we have a fireplace DVD that we play on the TV… it even crackles! It’s called the “poor man’s fireplace” (as we affectionately call it). But it does cozy up the room, and we just use our imaginations to feel the warmth of the fire. 

This is our little downtown Coleraine a few nights ago. We had just come out of a restaurant and the snow was falling… it was so peaceful. Our house is just a couple of blocks away. 

Here are a few of my favorite ornaments. As much as I try to not focus on Santa Claus, for some reason I tend to gravitate to the Old World Santas. They are just so sweet looking. I do like the story of St. Nicholas, though, and I will tell my children about his giving spirit… instead of focusing on “getting” presents. My parents were always really good about keeping Jesus at the center of the season when I was growing up, and I appreciate those memories so much. We even have cake and sing “Happy Birthday” to Jesus. Even as a child (amidst the excitement of presents), I realized that the true gift to us was our Saviour born in a manger. I am so grateful to my parents for raising us this way.

Mark’s mom, Deborah, and I got this Santa a few years back at an auction in Missouri. I was too intimidated to raise my paddle so I kept hitting her to bid for me. I was so happy to get him… I think I only paid $5 if I remember right. Deborah came home with a whole car-load of stuff from that auction… we hit the jackpot!

Well, these are the beginnings of my Christmas decorations… there will be more later which I hope to post as well. I’ll get to it one of these days before Christmas (grin). 

Hope your season is special and filled with the warmth of His love.

Tags: Decorating, Holidays, Home

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 9th, 2008 at 10:19 pm and is filed under Melissa. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.