Christmas at Our House

It's Christmas time at our house! Last year we hosted the holidays so we went all out with the decorating. Everywhere a guest might pause, there was a touch of Christmas. This year however, we will be the visitors. Cutting back on the decorations was one way we simplified the holidays. Matthew can understand so much more this year, so I tried to do things that he could be involved with, and that gave us opportunities to celebrate memories and the true meaning of Christmas. (I'll admit, there have been years that I focused more on having the perfect decorations, that the right heart attitude.)
First we put up the tree, which was very exciting as Matthew made a huge deal over every ornament.
"Mommy, . . . .it's a SNOWMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
"Mommy, . . . . it's a picture of ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
My favorite was when he saw an ornament of Santa Clause holding a canoe and he said
"Look Mommy, . . . IT'S GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"God?"
"Yeah, God made the boat!" (he's been learning about Noah at church :-) sooooo cute!

We didn't do tinsel or garland this year, just a tree chock full of ornaments and memories. After some rearranging, (all the ornaments were on the bottom, 3 to a branch, since Matthew decorated it) here is how our tree turned out this year.
Not decorating the whole house left me with a little crafting time, so I made this Names of God Garland, which I found at The Homespun Heart one of my new favorite blogspots.
There is a bit more craftiness going on at our house, but since the recipients of those gifts are also readers of this blog, you'll all have to wait until Dec. 26th to see what I've been working on.

How about you? What are your favorite holiday decorations this year?