Christmas Decorations

When do you begin decorating for Christmas? If it was up to me, I would be starting this weekend. My husband throws a fit if anything is up before Thanksgiving though so it will have to wait.

I'm trying to pare down my decorations, but I love Christmas so this is hard. I normally put up 2 large trees and one small tree. The small one is my baking tree and my ornaments are about to overtake the tree. I started this one two years ago since I love to cook and my family has taken off with the idea. I would like to convert this to a pencil tree but that probably won't happen for awhile as our monkey is into everything these days.

Our upstairs tree is super simple but oh so beautiful. When we were first married, I decorated the tree and put it in the front window. It put me in the Christmas mood every night when I would drive home and see it shining in my front window. When I was pregnant with our son, my husband was working about 4 hours away. It was too much for me to put everything up so I simply put up the pre-lit tree - no decorations on it. It was such a beautiful tree that it didn't need anything else. Since then, I've not hung ornaments on the tree. Some years I put garland on it but that is it. The tree has since been moved to a corner in my kitchen but it is still beautiful where it is.

The final tree goes in our basement. I put all of the ornaments I have collected since I was a little child on it. My mom would buy us at least one ornament every year for Christmas. It was great when I moved out because I had some decorations for my first tree. It is fun to go through the memories each year as I unpack each ornament.

I have several other decorations that I put out each year but I would say my next favorite item is my nativity collection. I put them on the mantle above my fireplace. I have one large set and several smaller ones. Jesus is the reason for the season so I feel it is important to display that somewhere. Some years, my trees and nativity collection are all that make it out of the box. Before a toddler, I got everything out, but I would rather it be safe in the box now instead of broken in two seconds flat.

What are your favorite decorations and how are you keeping things more simple this year? Feel free to leave a comment.