Sunday, December 7, 2008

Christmas Threw Up, v.2008

Whew!!! The inside of the house is officially entirely decked out. The problem is, as usual it is now almost impossible to keep the house neat AT ALL. On normal weekends, the house gets messed up, but during the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, hoo boy, get out your shovels because you're gonna have to make a path! Between decorations, shopping bags, craft stuff, things that the kids bring home from various places, and MAIL (holy God, the catalogues!!! Do I *really* need the Hearthsong catelogue to come every. freakin'. day?! I think not.), the house goes completely to pot over the holiday weekends. This is partly because I refuse to kill myself trying to keep up, and partly because I refuse to clean on weekends (unless someone is coming over, and that someone is someone who doesn't usually come over so I feel like I have to clean up for them, which hardly ever happens). At this time of year, I'm so busy with school and church activities that I barely have time to put on clean clothes, never mind clear off space so we can eat at the table like normal people. No, no - we will be eating in the living room for the next several weeks, I believe.

Anyway, since so many other people have posted such lovely photos of what Christmas means at their homes, I figured I'd post what Christmas is at our house. I tried to take photos that didn't show the mess. You're welcome.

So, this is the tree, unlit and lit:

See, I told you that you can see these LED lights from space, particularly the blue ones! There are all colors on there, but the blue ones are pretty bright.

This is my favorite nativity scene:
I really like cute nativities, and I have sort of a collection of them now. This is the best one, though. I love the expressions on the faces, and the little animals.

This is one of my best Christmas purchases EVER. It's an LED flickering candle that turns itself on and off!!! It goes on every night at 6, turns off six hours later, and then turns itself back on the next night!!!!! How fabulous is THAT?!?! I love how houses look with candles in the windows, but the cheaper ones ran out of batteries all the time, were tippy, and I had to remember to turn them all on and off every morning and night. Right. These will last all season, aren't tippy at all, and come with a big suction cup to help them stay put! The only problem is, the suction cup isn't long enough to reach over the sill to the glass, so the ones that are directly on the sill can't use the cup. They're currently $6 at Michael's. I know, steep, but I figure I was replacing the crappy ones all the time due to breaks and paying for all those batteries, so it works out the same in the end.

And this is my favorite decoration:

Isn't it beautiful? It's glass, and I've actually managed to keep it in one piece for about eight years now. It's about the size of my hand, and weighs about what a paperweight would. I just loce the way the snow blends into the branches, and how the ribbon on the packages looks like the most perfect frosting. Just perfect.

And now for something totally different. I present to you, Captain Underpants Vader:

If there's a category of merit badge that specifies Being Prepared for a Jedi Situation, he would win, hands-down.

8 comments:

Not Your Aunt B said...

Wow! I love your glass ornament the best too, but it all looks great. And it made me smile that Captain Underpants Vader is ready with his two light sabers, but has on mismatched socks. Aww...

Kristi said...

I love all of your decorations!! I'm still in that building up my Christmas collection phase.

Sherendipity said...

I'm so jealous. I have nothing done.
Nothing.

creative kerfuffle said...

oooo, pretty. love the candle. the hubs has been looking for those EVERYWHERE but all he can find have cords. i'll have to check out michaels. awesome.
and i LOVE patrick's outfit! the boy so does stuff like that.
my word verify is alist and i'd totally put patrick on the a-list!

Rebecca said...

I LOVE that glass Christmas tree. So beautiful. I would give it 3 days in my house though. Someday...

Kelsey said...

I love seeing other people's Christmas things! What do you think of the LED lights - do they still have that soft quality Christmas glow?

Astarte said...

Rebecca - that tree lives on a shelf over the stove, far from where anyone but me can touch it! But I still see it all the time, as I'm chained to the freakin' stove.

Kelsey - I had to get used to the LED lights, like I had to get used to the CFL bulbs in the lamps. They look like freakish raspberries. They are definitely a different kind of light, much brighter. There's no 'glow' about them, really - they're bright. But, I do like how I can see the lights even when they're woven inside the tree branch further. They also show up nicely from outside the house, like when I drive past in the car. Also, I think the space shuttle can see them.

bacioni said...

Oh how I wish I knew that Michael's had those window candles! Last year I started looking for the ones with batteries, and I ended up with none.

This year I found the cheap, tippy ones, bought 12 (yep, 12, because they were from a catalog and I couldn't tell they were cheap and tippy) then I will have to figure out a way to make them stand up straight and yes, I WILL have to turn them on and off each night. Dang!

Your decorations are really cool. I'm going deco-lite this year, but I was really counting on the candles for some class. Cheers to plastic-y, cheap-o, tippy class!