christmas decorations

i don't know about you, but i have always loved decorating our home for christmas. in years past i would go into the garage and grab my christmas boxes, bring them into the house, and have fun transforming our home into a christmas wonderland.

every year i had to do it a little differently--not that i felt i had to, but because each year fresh ideas came to mind that just seemed to better than the previous year. this trait was also handed down to me from my mother, who every year gloriously decorated our home--but never the same--and she decorated the christmas tree with a new theme each year as well (as do i--thanks mom!).

so this is our first year in hamburg. the majority of our christmas decorations are in a box in my brother's basement right now--the rest of it i think i gave to his sweet wife. as some of you may know, we packed lightly in our move to hamburg...only bringing with us the necessary things...and giving most of the things that filled our home away (that was so much fun to do). so if we brought something here, it means that it really meant something to us. and since i love decorating for christmas so much, i had to pack a few of my favorite items into our suitcases. in taking pictures of them today, i realized that i packed in 2's...i must have been thought we were traveling to hamburg via noah's ark. i brought the following, which you will see in a minute:

2 christmas signs
2 stockings
&
2 tablecloths

the sign above is the size of a postcard, and is like a little vintage christmas postcard, and i have it in the kitchen up against some old glass bottles. very vintagy and happy. it reminds me of our kitchen in l.a. because i often had it in there.

of course i had to bring the kids' stockings--i'd be a scrooge-y mommy if i didn't! jose's will always be special because it reminds me of his first christmas with us. after waiting many years for our precious son, i was so excited to finally be able to call pottery barn and order our son his very first stocking with his name embroidered: jose

we have hung their stockings on our bookcase, and in between the kids' stockings is this happy christmas sign. i like it for 2 reasons: 1) it reminds me of shopping with my friend kathleen last year when she and her husband came for the weekend to say 'goodbye' to us before we moved--she bought a santa one and i got this one--i like things that have a special memory or person attached to it. 2) i chose it last year because of the white christmas scene (foreign to los angeles eyes) and it made me think of what type of snowy christmases may await us in our new life in germany. we shall see! it does snow here....


now grace's stocking has an entirely different meaning to me than jose's. jose came home with us in january 2007 and grace came seven months later in august 2007. thus, christmas 2006 = no children. christmas 2007 = 2 children! in december of 2007, jose was already an official brewer--but with grace there was still the very real possibility of her going back to her birth parents. so for that first christmas, we knew that that might have been our only christmas ever with her, and with she and jose celebrating it together. thus, when i ordered the stockings, jose's we knew would be on our mantel for all of the upcoming years. with grace's, we didn't know what the future held for her--or for us. i remember thinking when i ordered her stocking, of course i am going to order one for her, too. for now, she is our daughter and she is going to have her stocking on the mantel. if she ends up being reunited with her parents and we never see her again, then i will pack her stocking with her in her little suitcase of belongings, hoping that as she gets older, it will be special to her--reminding her that somewhere, she has a brother with the same matching stocking. i am crying right now as i type this--at how sad that would have been for them to never see each other again, and also i cry for joy at the gift god gave us in allowing her to STAY part of our family, forever. whew! that was harder to write than i thought. so that's why her stocking will always be special to me, and why it didn't stand a chance of being left in our christmas box in my brother's basement.



now onto tablecloths which really have no deep meaning at all except that i used to collect vintage tablecloths and they make me happy. so i had to bring my favorite 2. this first is flowing with christmas bells and ornaments and it is white and bright and cheery. it also reminds me of our home in l.a., as i often decorated the house in ways to match this tablecloth.





i am a details girl. check out the details on this baby. sooo cute!





the previous one is my most favorite, but this one has the wintry, snowy scenes on it, which again i brought because i thought that this may be us in our new wintry hamburg home.





the tablecloth is bordered by little countryside christmas scenes, which i think are precious. above is a little church and steeple in the snow, and i just saw one like this in the hamburg countryside the other day (but without the snow--at least not yet!).





now here we are as a happy family: jose and grace are in the horse driven sled, daddy is shoveling snow in the driveway, and mommy is all cozy inside baking christmas cookies. sounds good to me! now being that we live in the city in an apartment, this is not exactly a scene true to life--but who knows--maybe in a few years this will be us!



so those are our special, from home, christmas treasures that are now decking our halls here. but above is a new, hamburg addition to our collection: jose and grace made these cute votive candles the other day in sunday school, covered in cut up tissue paper. so sweet, and they match just perfectly with my favorite tablecloth. (very important that they match, you know!)

so what are your favorite christmas decorations that have special meaning to YOU?