More Merry

Raise your hand if you're sick of my house at Christmas--  to all who raised they hand I'm sorry.  But this is what I'm looking at all day e'r day (except on the days when I have a dr. appt., when I step outside of these four walls for 1-1.5 hours), and I get excited when I change things around a little tiny bit.  

If you're ever wondering why we put a tree in front of a door- that entrance/exit rarely gets used and not at all in the winter. Right now there's a hoaky set of steps leaning up against the house outside and it's a use-at-your-own-risk kind of deal.  We would like to eventually put a deck out there or- my pie in the sky idea- a den.  Wouldn't it be nice.

I was going to claim this Robert Frost book as one of our favorite Christmas books, but since the kids never ask me to read it, I think it's MY favorite that I make them listen to.  But I love it.  Other Christmas reads in heavy circulation at our house are Who is Coming to Our House?, Bear Stays Up for Christmas, The Legend of the Candy Cane, I Spy Christmas Book, The Animals' Christmas Eve (one of my childhood favorites)...and a bunch more.  In adult Christmas fiction- have you read Skipping Christmas by John Grisham?  It's from a few years ago and was made into a movie called Christmas With the Kranks which was completely underwhelming.  But the book is so stinking funny.  I read it aloud to Andrew on our way to Chicago the year our nephew Caleb was born.  We were LOLing.  A lot.  

More trees made of paper.  This was Oliver's and my project from last year.

The stockings are hung on the banister with care.

I don't know if I've ever talked about the awesomeness of this little contraption.  We used to do themed gifting on the Toftness side, and one Christmas the theme was 'thrift'.  My brother in law took apart this old intercom speaker, removed the guts, put in mp3 speakers, and now my iPhone is pumping Pandora Christmas to beat the band.  How neat is that?