Some Holiday Pretty

Our ski bum snowman took a beating this year,
being about equal size to the children.
Clearly he has the joy of Christmas in his heart.

Ok, so we got a wonderful camera... and it's so much fun to take pictures. And it's so easy! Yay! So, now I've got some pictures loaded up for you and I've got them shrunk down so it doesn't take a half an hour for our high speed light to upload the pictures here. I took some pictures of our Christmas decorations. They don't mind their picture taken. The children are already growing weary of my snapping.

Pieces of the amigurumi Nativity I crocheted for the children for Christmas.
At the time of this picture, Jesus and the donkey had been off galavanting around the house.

The sheep ornament my friend Laura gave me, probably in grade 9.

A pretty cute and simple Santa ornament my aunt made one year.

Did I tell you the kids and Dan decorated the tree this year?
Did I tell you I didn't re-decorate it?*
Did I tell you this required enormous amounts of restraint on my part?
The kids had no qualms about re-decorating the tree.
They were constantly "re-arranging" the ornaments all season...

And they were adding things.
This is a cookie cutter they decided would make a good ornament.

The "jingle bell" ornament got a lot of use this Christmas.

Seriously, my real life doesn't look this good. I love this camera.

Now time to tell my favorite Zoe Christmas story:

Dan had allowed me to sleep in one morning shortly before we left for our Christmas trip to Lethbridge. Now, in case you didn't already know, we are Christians. My husband's a pastor, for Pete's sake. We celebrate Christmas. And while we're generally fairly politically correct, I won't bend over backwards being careful about what kind of greeting I wish people at Christmas. I say Merry Christmas. Maybe I'm a jerk; oh well. I'm a Merry-Christmas-greeting jerk. We do allow our children to watch children's television. On the morning I was sleeping, Zoe (apparently) watched Blues' Clues, a show which she doesn't see very often because it doesn't really fit with our schedule. When I awoke and was having my morning coffee, Zoe offered me this wonderful little conversation...

"Mommy, do you know what my favorite thing about the holidays is?"
(Thinking to self: what an contrived-sounding question)
"No, what is your favorite thing about the holidays?"
"Generosity. (beat) That means sharing." And the best part: then she sings, "Gen-er-os-it-yyyyyy!" and asks me, "What's your favorite thing about the holidays, mommy?"
"Polite children. And we just say 'Christmas.' We don't have to call it 'the holidays.' We just say Christmas."

Here is one of the ornaments I grew up with at home.
I guess since it's more than 20 years old, it's considered vintage.
So, what do you know? I have a vintage Christmas wall hanging.

Here's what the wall hanging says in case you can't read the funky '70s print:

That Santa Claus is a heavy cat
The real gifts he carries aren't in his pack
He spreads peace, love and joy
That's where it's at
So when I say he's heavy,
I don't mean just fat.

*By not re-decorating it, that meant that I didn't move any ornaments on the tree from one location to another; however, if the ornament fell on the floor, I was free to place it wherever I wanted. I am also happy to report that I did not purposefully cause any ornaments to fall on the floor. This is all part of my relaxing as a mom and wife.