Christmas Decor around my house

Would you like a Christmas tour?  It might even be better to take online rather than in person because you won't be tripping over stuff.

Sometime this past year (or maybe last year?  It all blurs), I took the big doors off of our main upper kitchen cabinets to create open shelving.  A few months after that I put the damask black-and-white wallpaper up in the back, which I love.  And I love that I can change out some of the items to decorate for the season.

Our everyday dishes are on the right, and more decorative stuff is on the left, which are the harder-to-reach shelves. 

The basket on the bottom left is full of kids' bowls, which they can reach from a chair on the other side of the counter.

To the left of the cabinet I switched out the photo with the yellow mat with this jewelry tree:

The jewelry tree is my favorite decoration to take out every year.  My aunt and cousins created these using jewelry pieces and craft bits left in my grandma's stash after she passed away.  I was so touched that they went to all the work to make one for each of the ladies in the family, and what a great memory!  I just love it.


In our kitchen we discovered our garage door is magnetic, being a fire door or something.  What a great discovery!  The kids' alphabet pieces were moved from the fridge (actually moved from the floor in front of the fridge) to the garage door.  Much better placement for during the day since they were out of my way.
So we also hang a Christmas Countdown tree there.  My middle son likes to move the fake candy cane (attached to the top of the tree with a string) into the 24th so tomorrow will be Christmas.  Nice try buddy!
After years of planning on making some kind of Christmas advent calendar craft of my own with pockets and amazing cuteness like this one (found here), or this one, or this one, or this one (I would try it with old Christmas cards), I finally gave up when I found a great deal on this at Costco.  Maybe someday I'll still make something.  If you claim it, I'll hand this one down to you when/if that ever happens!

 

My husband thought the little houses with lights inside were cute, so I got him one last year (the huge one on the left).  I wasn't sure if this was a collection I'll be continuing, but then my mom gave me all the other houses last yera so I figured I'd set them up this year.
So far, the houses have seen a "blizzard" of cotton snow, and every figure has been perched atop houses and buried in "snow."  If you looked at the display now there is a huge blank area in the middle (where a tornado blew through?) and toppled people.  Again, not sure if this is a collection I'll keep around, although it is kind of cute.

In past years I've hung Christmas cards from a "Merry Christmas" sign that had holes where I placed long pieces of ribbon.  I have since covered up the wall where that used to hang with a collage of photos and stuff, so I had to find a new display area.  I got the idea to wrap a long piece of ribbon around our basement door and tie it with a bow and voilà!  A few clothespins and we have instant display so the cards aren't floating around the house (or getting dumped from their basket by children three times a day).  Of course the lower ones are removed frequently from the door, hence many of them are placed up high.  It's like the Christmas tree all over again.

(By the way, my daughter has found the three glass ornaments we own, taken them off our Christmas tree, and chucked all three to the floor, breaking them.   Maybe we should have waited another year to put ornaments at the bottom of the tree again!).

Happy Christmas decorating!
~Sally