Soon after the Thanksgiving festivities, our family pulls out the Christmas decorations and gets to work decorating our home. I make candy and cookies and we drink hot chocolate and cider (if any can be found in the stores by this time – sadly, not this year). It’s a festive occasion that has been a family tradition since the early years of our marriage.
First is always the tree.
This year, we didn’t have our annual lighting struggle because last year we bought brand new {higher quality} lights. For some reason, not fighting the lights was a little bit sad for me
The lights have always been the boys’ department. Even when Blake was only 1 year old, he was Daddy’s lighting helper. He felt so big handing Daddy the lights as Daddy wrapped them around the tree. Now he IS big, but I think he still enjoys working on the Christmas lights with Daddy.
Another family tradition is icicles (or tinsel) instead of garland on the Christmas tree. This was something my husband’s grandmother always did and this year she was here to join in the fun!
Typically, the little kids throw the icicles in bunches and the rest of us make them look neater. Micah was pretty proud of his work…
Next are the ornaments. I sit on the floor with the big box of ornaments and divvy them up according to child. I’ll be doing a post on our ornaments because with a large family this can get tricky. But, for now, I’ll just say that there are ornaments that belong to each child. They have their first Christmas ornaments and each of them have a bear ornament. All the breakables go at the top (of course).
At the end of it all, Daddy puts the star on the tree to symbolize the star that announced Christ’s birth!
Our other decorations are fairly simplistic and child friendly. I’ll be sharing some of those later on in this series.
Last year, I decluttered a bunch of our Christmas decorations. It was so nice to only have a couple of boxes to open this year and not have to sort through all the junk (yes, we were keeping junk Christmas decor).
Now is the perfect time to declutter Christmas decorations because you can see exactly what goes in your home and what does not. By donating what doesn’t work, you are giving someone else the chance to decorate frugally!
So, when do you decorate? Have you decluttered your decorations? Do you have any decorating traditions?
And just for giggles, here’s video of our star lighting ceremony! This is always quite a highlight of the evening…as you will see…
Erica says
We put up our tree and decorated it Sunday and then Monday night. We decluttered our Christmas “stuff” in the last 2 years, when we’ve moved 3 times. Moving is good, after all! We have garland made from fabric I bought when we were first married that was printed in strips and has the manger scene and shepherds and wise men on it. I cut it out with pinking shears and sewed it together so it’s one huge strip. It gets a little messed up once the ornaments are on the tree, but we love it anyway!
I have a large family tip, too: when removing ornaments from the tree, put them away by child, so that the sorting is already done for the next year. This saved me so much time this year! There was also no waiting for me to get to their favorites. Of course, there are ornaments that are for everyone, which I divide out or Dan and I put up.
Amy says
LOVE that idea, Erica! Thank you for sharing! And your fabric garland sounds lovely 🙂
Anita Chamblee says
I did a decluttering of the Christmas ornaments last year and this year as well. We’ve had a lovely lighted village for years. It’s very Dickensian. Last year my mil gifted us with a HUGE lighted church that is all white and glittery and I even think it may have neon lights. Very garish and not me. I hate to think how much she spent on it. I can’t bring myself to put it out, but at the same time I can’t get rid of it….yet. It was put back up in the attic.
Amy says
Someday… 😉
Laura says
Hehee! I had a little giggle at your video! Looks so much like many of mine! Thank you for sharing! 🙂 As for decluttering, I am SO NOT looking forward to doing it this year, but I think I am going to wait until after Christmas while I am in the “clean-up” mode (if there is such a thing!)
Linda says
How fun to be a part of your Christmas Star lighting through this video! I loved it.
God bless you and your family this Christmas…. and always!
Linda
Grateful for Grace says
Such special memories. I shared about ornaments in the LFO link up yesterday.
blessings!
Lyndsay says
The ‘men’ do the lights at our house too. It is a very big deal. 🙂
Emily Fay says
The lights are the boys department in our home too and we also use tinsel instead of garland :)Your tree looks wonderful! Happy Holidays!
Kayla says
I am currently a college student, and not being home to take part in my family’s Christmas decorating has kind of bummed me out until the past night. My roommate and I decided we would decorate our college dorm door and then our room. Our door is finally complete after three hours of decorating, putting the lights up and of listening to Christmas music. It was a blast and I can’t wait to finish decorating the rest of our room!
Amy says
I remember doing that! Finding new traditions is always difficult, but always worth the effort!
Tracy Avery says
Amy, Love the tree but I have an unrelated question. I am new to home schooling and I thought I saw in a past post something on a packet where the kids were going to do a covered wagon with tape on the floor. What book or series is it from. My son is very into the covered wagon history and I thought it would be fun to do with guidance. Thanks
Tracy
Amy says
Hi Tracy! It was from The Prairie Primer which studies the Little House on the Prairie series (and it is definitely NOT just a series for girls!) We also read If You Crossed the West in a Covered Wagon (I think that’s the name of it). I don’t know how old your son it, but the Prairie Primer is very good!
Tracy Avery says
Amy,
Thank you so much. I have a 7 year old boy who loves to reads. I can’t wait to get Prairie Primer. Thanks for the reminder.
Blessings to you and your family this holiday season.
Tracy