My Home Christmas Decorations and A Holiday Break Announcement

Merry Christmas!  I hope everyone is having a wonderful time celebrating with their family and friends!  So far, our Christmas has been blessed beyond measure with family and friends and Christmas Day hasn't even arrived yet.  My son arrived last night;  it was so good to welcome him home again.  My husband had an awesome Christmas work party and received some generous gift cards from his employers.  And I just threw a ladies Christmas tea for some friends yesterday that went so well.  I really felt the presence of the Lord during our visit, and we promised to get together more often.  Ashley, Jason, and our new grand baby Alethea will arrive tomorrow.  Jason's father will be visiting us later in the week.  And New Year's Day we will be throwing our annual New Years Day party with our oldest friends.  Fun, fun, fun!  

I will be taking a two week blogging break starting today.  One week just to have fun, and one week to have time to write blog posts for the next week.  If I only took the holiday week off, I would have to write blog posts during the holiday week, and I don't want to do that.  I want to cherish every minute of my time with my family and friends.  I will return to a regular blogging schedule on January 8, 2018!

In the meantime, I wanted to show you a few pictures of my home decorated for Christmas.  Last year I went all out and made many videos of my Christmas Decorations.  You can check out my YouTube Channel HERE if your interested in seeing those.  This year, I decided to simplify my Christmas Decorations.  One reason was to be easier for me and another reason was to follow current Christmas decorations trends.  I've noticed as I perused the web that flocking, greenery, undecorated rustic trees and garland with lights are trending, so I tried to incorporate some of those new ideas with my own Christmas decor.  

My son gave me this sleigh as my Christmas gift last year.  I placed it in my entry way and filled it with presents and greenery.  I placed three little lit green trees around the sleigh and left them undecorated.

On the entry way table next to the sleigh I placed a Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus statue surrounded by greenery and a "Merry Christmas" sign.  I want everyone to know when they enter my house that "Jesus is the Reason for the Season".

To keep up with my simpler Christmas decorating theme, I only decorated one tree this year instead of two or more.  I put it in my family room.  In previous years, I've always done this room in red and gold colors.  This year, I decided to go with a monochromatic theme and decorate the entire tree and entertainment center garland in gold.

I put gold snowflakes on the tree, in the garland, and on the windows!

I tried a new technique this year and I absolutely love it!  My cat in previous years always destroyed my Christmas Tree so I wanted to figure out another way to put ribbon on my tree where he wouldn't be able to pull it off.  It's called the Octopus Technique.  You cut three strands of ribbon and tie them to the tree.  It not only keeps the ribbon secure, but it makes the tree look so full and lush as well.  I made a video explaining this technique and I put it on my Facebook Page HERE.

In the living room, I put up a simple garland of greenery, gold bulbs, and bows on my staircase, and I added a tall ceramic angel to my end table.

For the dining room I put up my usual Christmas plates and added a simple lighted garland with a few gold bows to the opening of the dining room/office area.

I did decorate the chandelier and add some greenery to the top of other furnishings as well.

 I had a lot of fun with the sun room this year.  I decorated the shelf behind the wood stove with garland, some Victorian characters, and a wreath.  I put a small wreath in every window and added a festive touch to each table.

I added more garland to the staircase, putting a gold bell with red bows at each post.  A large green and red wreath is above the exit door.

 I used a gold sleigh for the dining room centerpiece table.  I put some reindeer in front of the sleigh and added some greenery inside the sleigh.

Normally I put greenery on top of the upper balcony, but this year in keeping with my simpler theme, I just tied red bows to each support beam.

I added just a touch of Christmas in our master bedroom by putting a silver metallic tree on one nightstand and a silver vase filled with Christmas greenery on another.

For the kitchen, I just decorated with more Christmas greenery and Christmas Cookie Cook Books.

 Have a Wonderful Christmas and A Happy New Year, and I'll See You Next Year!

Amy

La Crosse Rotary Lights

Since it is the Christmas Season, I am going to take a little break from my Missouri Vacation Posts and share some Holiday Season Travel Posts.  This past weekend my husband and I went to LaCrosse  Wisconsin to see the Rotary Lights.  We have lived in this area for over 25 years, and would you believe we had never done this before?  Why, you may ask?  I never knew it was there...but apparently this is a 22 year old tradition of LaCrosse!  I was made aware of this wonderful holiday event by a friend's Facebook post.  My husband was not to thrilled about driving an hour and a half on back country roads in the dark (we have a large deer population in our area and car/deer collisions are a common occurrence).  So we took the oldest, most beat-up car we own (cause what difference would one more dent make if a deer collided with it?) and after I packed it full with blankets and food in case we got stranded overnight off we went!

You can drive through the park to see the lights (but be prepared to wait in a very long line) or you can walk through.  They also have carriage rides available (which was another long line).  It was a mild winter evening for Wisconsin, around 32 degrees, so we chose to walk.  And I'm so glad we did, because I think you get so much more out of it walking through it verses driving.

They have a living nativity which my husband and I were very pleased to see.  They had several scenes of the Birth of Christ story, marked by scripture.

The angelic choir was actually singing, and they were pretty good!

 More than 400,000 lights illuminate LaCrosse's Riverside Park.  They also have a 140 foot illuminated Christmas Tree and animated lighted displays.

 Frosty the Snowman was always one of my favorite animated holiday t.v. shows, so I was super excited to see him here!

They had multiple ways of keeping people warm on frosty nights.  They had two warming shelters.  We stopped in this one, which was a lighted igloo.  I couldn't believe how warm it was inside.  They also had a wood camp fire and plenty of hot chocolate, cappuccino, coffee, and tea for only $1.00.

It was such a beautiful, romantic evening.  It's so rare when we can just walk outside in Wisconsin and not want to run back inside as quickly as we can because it's too cold to bear.  The weather was perfect for such a night as this, and judging by the crowd of people that were there, others agreed.

This eagle sculpture is always at the park (eagles are a common sighting in this area).  They put a circle of carolers around it.

Isn't this carousal beautiful?

And here is the 140 foot illuminated Christmas Tree I told you about earlier.  This was truly breathtaking to behold;   especially when I got under it and looked up!

Of course, everyone around here is a Green Bay Packer fan so we had to have a lit up Packer player as well!

 I love the nutcrackers and Rotary Lights sign with the tree in the distance as you enter the park.

 Santa and his reindeer are at the park too!  You can see Santa every night from 5 to 8 pm until December 23rd;  after that, Santa is busy!

This is Santa's Elf House.  I already have everything I could ever want, so I didn't stop in to see Santa today.  He looked like he had a very long line of children who wanted to talk to him.

Even though it was warm for a Wisconsin evening, I dressed very warm in a long down-filled parka, beanie, gloves, and boots.

They had the cutest area set up where you could take photographs on Santa's sleigh, with his reindeer, or in winter scenes.  This stuffed reindeer was just too cute!

I love these vintage snowmen!

Aren't these wooden Victorian carolers lovely?

As if there wasn't enough to do for the kids, they also had "train" rides and free family hay rides!

After we walked through the park, we blissfully headed back to our car.  We had never been to downtown LaCrosse before, and I was stunned by the beautiful architecture.  This is a toy store all decked out for Christmas.  I love the wreaths in all the upper story windows and the window displays.

This candy/ice cream store was packed!  We laughed that they had so many customers on a cold winter evening.

I thought downtown LaCrosse was so beautiful I said to my husband that we must go back in the summer or fall to explore more!

And the best part of the three hour drive there and back?  We got to look at the GORGEOUS super moon!  Did you get to see it where you live?

LaCrosse's Rotary Lights is open 5 to 10 pm daily except for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (5 to 9 those days) and New Years Eve they are open 1:00.  The Rotary Lights display opens the day after Thanksgiving with a parade!  There is no cost to walk or drive through the park, but they do ask for a cash or food donation.  I looked in my kitchen pantry for canned goods, but would you believe everything I had was expired?  haha!  I guess I'm a fresh or frozen kind of gal, so we gave them cash instead!

Have a Great Day!  Amy

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