Deck the halls

I am attempting to join my first Blogging block party. It is "Deck the Halls" hosted by Dianne from http://www.thoughtsfromovertherainbow.blogspot.com/

She has several lovely ideas and links to bloggers with lots more. I attempted to do this last night, it didn't work, wish me luck.

I talked about how much my Mother and Mother in law influenced our Christmas decorations and traditions in the last post. Here are a few more examples. This lovely angel belonged to my Mother in Law.

These figurines go with my Mom's Christmas Village. I painted most of them for her when I was a teenager. She loved this set!

Here are some of the buildings that go with the same set. I painted all of these. Mom had a set up where the buildings fit on top of little lights so the houses twinkled. If you look closely you can see the windows are all cut out to allow light through. I light the lanterns, but not the houses.

Mother nature has been decking her halls too. We don't have any snow, but aren't these little red birds lovely?

This video is a little shaky, I was trying to get closer to the birds. They are very hard to photograph. If you have kitties, play this video for them. Spontaneous appreciates the bird song.

Instead of putting ornaments in a glass bowel, my Sweet Hubby decorates with home made caramels. MMM!

Each year, when we take down the tree, we cut part of the trunk off and save it for the next year. On Christmas morning, we will start a fire in the fireplace with this one.

Another one of Mother Nature's Southern traditions, Camellia's blooming for Christmas time. I have two big lovely bushes in my yard.

This picture with exterior decorations is from last year. In one of the next posts I will show you why we don't have them up yet this year. In the mean time, I love this picture so I decided to share it again. Yes, that is me up on the balcony.

Last of all, a tired little sweetheart. You can't decorate properly without the help of the cat.

Thanks to Cass, from http://cass-thatoldhouse.blogspot.com/2009/12/holiday-touches-old-and-new.html for giving me the idea to join the block party.