Our Home During Christmastide

We decorated several weeks ago, but I thought you might like to see what our home looks like this year.  The pictures are a bit blurry because I lost the camera cord to our better digital camera.  Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy the glimpse into our home during this wonderful and meaningful season.

Our Advent wreath.  We love participating in this tradition, both as a church and as a family.

Christmas cards from friends and family above our Advent calendar. 

A closer view of the amazing Advent calendar my mom made for us.  We add another 'character' each day; I really look forward to doing this when we have children.

Of course, our house would not be complete without books...

This is our Jesus Tree.  Each day of the month of December, we pull out an ornament from the Advent box beside the tree; each ornament has a different name or attribute of Jesus with a Scripture reference.  We read the verse together as a family and hang the ornament on the tree.  This is another tradition I love now, but am really excited to practice it when we have children.

The start of my Willow Tree Nativity set...

My stocking with our Jesus tree in the background; we each have matching stockings that coordinate with our treeskirt.

Part of our tree skirt; my mom made it for us, and it is simply the most beautiful tree skirt you will ever see.

Our tree!  It's blurry, but at least you can see how many lights are on it!

This is our nativity set that was carved out of olivewood in Bethlehem by Palestinian Christians.  A company works with them and sends them back all the profits from the sales in the United States and through their website.  We also have a few ornaments they carved as well.  It is beautiful in person.

Merry Christmas!!!