Our Christmas Cottage

I love Christmas time!!!  I love the lights,  the smells, the music (although I love listening to Christmas music all year long, just ask my kids!),  the hustle and bustle, the Christmas programs and living in an area of the world where it"s the norm to have snow this time of year!  I love decorating our house and the yard, the more lights the better!  I normally start decorating the day after Thanksgiving but this year it was later because of  getting ready for our trip to NFR (National Finals Rodeo) in Las Vegas!   But  today I'm finally done!

I love our vintage silversets I've collected from yard sales and thrift stores along with the beautiful punch bowl I received for Mothers's Day one year from our daughter, Chastity!

I have collected Nativity sets for many years and love displaying them.  Since we have moved to our little cottage I have no room to display all of them or our little village so I have started a little Nativity village!  The grandkids love looking at it all lit up!

Our Christmas tree has to be very small too!  But a couple of years ago I found this one that I loved and it has worked out great!

It fits perfect in our window and living room.

I don't know how this twinkle thing happened but thought it was fun!  I guess it's called a Google+ Auto Awesome?  I am still trying to figure out all this modern technology stuff!!!

I'm inlove with birds and birdnests (go figure, Roots and Wings!!)  so they are everywhere in the house all

 year long but these are some I use at Christmas:

I was so excited this past fall when we were cleaning out the garage and we came across some boxes we had never unpacked when we moved (there are lots of those still in storage ) and there were some ornaments we have had since our older kids were little, one being our baby Jesus!

When our kids did a good deed they could put a peice of straw in the little basket to make a cozy soft bed for Jesus! Some years His bed was cozier than others, but it was one of our traditions I know the kids still remember and loved! 

 It has always been important to me to have traditions that our kids could look forward to each year.  We never had alot of money to spend on lots of gifts which I was always grateful for because I wanted our focus to always be on why we celebrate Christmas, the birth of our Saviour !

We tried to teach our kids to serve others by picking a family each year and doing the 12 days of Christmas for them!

Now our kids are all grown and have families of their own,  and are making traditions of their own!

And maybe just maybe they are even doing some of the traditions they learned in their childhood!

We continue to do many of our same traditions and as our family grows we have started new traditions to include our whole family not  just at Christmas but throughout the year! 

Family has always been very important to us and the older we get we realize how precious our time is with each member of our family and cherish that time!

May we each take time in our busy preperations for Christmas to cherish our loved ones and remember how  our lives have been blessed because of the  birth of our Saviour, Jesus Christ!

Love, Laughter and Smiles,

Fran