Christmas Decorating

Now that pneumonia and a trip to Disney have past, I finally got to decorating for Christmas this weekend. My mom bought this fellow for me a couple of years ago at Ohio Mart at Stan Hywet in Akron.  I actually have several of this artist's gourds and I love them all.  This guy is on my dining room hutch.

Here is another one that sits on my keeping room mantle.

This is our Advent calendar, which I have had for many years.  It is hand painted from The Shaker Workshop and is missing December 24, but has two December 22nds!  I did not notice until I had it for a year and was too lazy to exchange it.

My favorite decorations are my Vaillancourt Santas.  The one in front was my first one that I received in 1996. 

I also have a few other chalk ware holiday folk  - the two angels are my two girls and the Santa was made by an artist from New Jersey.

I also love this Vaillancourt Nativity that was a gift from my Mom.  The angel is a little unsteady on top, so most of the time I do not have her on the roof.  Her foot broke twice the first week I had her and my mom sent me a new one.  The painted details are quite lovely on each piece.

This is a poor photo, but I love this Toy Shop, which was a gift from my mother-in-law many years ago.  Santa is sneaking amongst the toys and it has a music box which plays Jingle Bells!  The girls like to wind it up and play the song over and over again.

This is a Pere Noel made by local artist Brigitte Gottfried.  She uses vintage fabrics and recycled fur trim.  This one's jacket is made from and antique crazy quilt.  One year I bought four of them and gave one to my mom, sister and mother-in-law.  I kept this one for myself!

Of course, my favorite of all is my Christmas Tree.  We always get it on my daughter's birthday weekend and I love to decorate it.  (The tree skirt was also made by Brigitte Gottfried)  I have a set of Vaillancourt's Twelve Days of Christmas Santa ornaments and I make sure they are each tied to their branch, so that there are no accidents!  The girls and I have a lot of fun together, until they get bored and leave the dull ornaments for me to hang... 

I love to look at other people's decorations, so I hope you enjoyed seeing some of mine.  Merry Christmas!