Bookish Christmas Decor

Jeff is still working on his car (even right now as I’m writing), so we carpooled again today, which meant I got to ride in the backseat and play with my baby nugget on the way to school.

And look how sweet these girls are, hugging their little friends at school! So stinking cute & adorable!

This next picture was sent by her teachers in our parent portal app.

After school, there was a wreck right at the intersection of daycare, so traffic was pretty backed up. We got there about 15 or 20 minutes later than usual, because of it. so then when we walked in the front doors, Emerson was up at the front desk with Aunt Megan! Once we got her coat on and ready to go, Emerson noticed some of the new winter decorations they put up in the lobby. She is always so observant!

We drove straight to Walmart to pick up our grocery order, and by the time we left there it was already almost 6:30. Since we would normally already have cooked dinner and be sitting down to eat around that time, we decided it was too late to cook at home, and got dairy Queen on the way home instead. We ordered the new chicken finger meal that comes with a mini Blizzard, and we ate the Blizzards on the way home. Since I was still sitting in the backseat, I shared mine with Emerson, and of course she loved the ice cream. We ate dinner once we got home, and Emerson was being so funny, she had Jeff and I both cracking up laughing at all her silly antics. We played for a little while after dinner, and then it was quickly time for her to go to bed. We got her dressed in her new Christmas jammies again, she had a hot bottle of milk, and was ready to go to sleep within just a few seconds.

I then got started working on some more of our Christmas decorations. I figure if I just do a little bit every night this week, by the weekend it will be all done, then I can put away all of the boxes, and just enjoy the decorations for the next month! The two things I worked on tonight were our homemade Advent calendar, and this simple little banner. I actually made both of these five years ago, for our first married Christmas. We didn’t have much money that first year, since we had only been married a few months, we had very sparse Christmas decor, and what little we did have was either given to us by our family, or I made myself. These two things I’ve saved since then and I still like them both.

I set up the Advent calendar on the antique sewing table that’s in our hallway. This belonged to my grandmother’s mother, and it’s probably about 100 years old! sadly though, I was missing one tiny white paper clip. Instead I put a tiny black binder clip on the number 25, since it will be the first one to go.

And I put this simple little Joy to the World banner across the window above the kitchen sink. I also added a little gingerbread house, a set of penguin salt and pepper shakers, and changed out our normal coffee cup full of Splenda packets to a Christmas-y looking pioneer mug.

Last year, we didn’t get our tree up until about halfway through December, due to the fact I had a 5-month-old, we did singing Christmas tree the first weekend of the month, and we went to Indianapolis the second weekend of the month for my old college roommate Bridget’s wedding. And then once I finally got the tree up in the dining room, I didn’t do anything else around the house except that. This year I’m trying to put up all of our decor, and spread it more around the house, so that we get to enjoy it more. I’m loving what I’ve done so far, and I’m looking forward to put up more throughout the week.