I love decorating for Christmas. I have five large boxes of Christmas decorations! I only have one box for Halloween, one box for general Fall and Thanksgiving, and one box of Other Holidays. So I'm not just some kind of decorations freak, I'm a Christmas decorations freak (in a tasteful and not so freakish way). So I thought I'd take you on a tour of my Christmas wonderland.
I love stockings, it's probably one of my favorite parts of Christmas. I also don't plan to have fancy stockings anytime soon! I love stockings that are fun and reflect a little about the person you are filling it for.
Our Stockings left to right: Christopher, Lucy, Me!
I bought this striped stocking with jingle bells on it for Christopher for one of our first Christmases together, so maybe 2005 or 2006. I loved it because as soon as I saw it I thought, "that thing is crazy... Chris will love it!", so home it came! I've been filling it with hacker magazines, hot wheels cars, movies, and starbursts ever since. We got this pink snowman stocking for Lucy's first Christmas with us in 2010. We picked this one because it was cute just like Lucy and inexpensive enough that we can put treats and toys in there and let her rip into it herself and we don't have to worry about having an expensive stocking ruined by her need to eat liver treats immediately. I have had this Paul Frank monkey stocking since high school. I saw it somewhere in a magazine or online and when I woke up one Christmas morning it was there! I love this little monkey stocking and when I moved out my mom gave it to me and started using all matching fancy stockings at her house. Before I had this monkey stocking I had a beautiful stocking that my mom had cross stitched the music to Silent Night, one of my favorite Christmas carols, onto it.
I especially love filling stockings. Honestly, one thing I look forward to the most when we have kids is filling their Christmas stockings. In my family, stockings are full of fun little toys or gadgets, candy, and other things you like. For me, my mom always put in post it notes or cool pens because I love office supplies, or a movie or CD, or nail polish, hair ties or barrettes. Now that we are older she will put in a gift card to our favorite restaurant or to the nail salon for a pedicure. I just love all the little fun things you can stuff in a stocking. It's a great way to give a silly gift, like silly putty.
We got the stocking holders this year at Target. Our apartment had a fireplace with no mantel, so I would always use command hooks to hold up a garland and our stockings over the fireplace. Our new house doesn't have a fireplace, so we decided that stocking holders that were pretty on both sides would look nice in this opening. Also, a sad confession: the reason they aren't all the same shape is because I completely forgot we had a stocking for Lucy. So I had to go back to Target to get one for her stocking. I'm a terrible doggy mommy. Even though honestly I'm glad I ended up with a different one for her, plus it matches her stocking!
I also love icicles! I have glass icicle ornaments all over my tree, so when I saw these bad boys at crate and barrel this year, I knew I had to have them. They were a little more than I would have cared to pay ($10 for 2), but on Black Friday they had 15% off anything in the store so I snatched up 10 of them. We hung 7 of them in the opening between our dining room and living room, and I thinks it's fun. They are kind of hard to see, but I'd rather they kind of blend in that stick out like crazy.
Check back tomorrow for a look at our Christmas tree and some of my favorite ornaments.
