Flashback: Christmas Decorations and Christmas Day, 2016

In mid-September, 2016, we took a break from blogging but not from adventuring together! We resumed our blogging in March, 2017 and, in between current posts, we have been attempting to recapture the memories of those weeks through "flashback" posts. Thus far, we have caught up on the remainder of September, 2016 and all of October and November, 2016. We are almost caught up on December, 2016, as well. This "flashback" posts covers the period between the third weekend of December and the last weekend of that month.

There were no sales between the third weekend of the month and the weekend that closed out the year. That was no surprise. There hardly ever is. We did finish our Christmas decorating during the third weekend of the month and we were happy just to sit back and enjoy them!

 We decorate most of the house and the downstairs is no exception. It takes us a week to pack everything away that is there during the rest of the year. Only after that is done can we start the Christmas decorating (all vintage). Not everything gets put away. Much of the furniture (tables, etc) is covered with Christmas tablecloths. The cats, in the background, are not put away either. We simply include them.

Elves, snowmen and stockings all find a place downstairs.

Our downstairs shadow box is filled with Christmas.

Large creepy Santas and a creepy snowman.

This shelve unit is filled with as many things as possible.

Ceramic Santas

Lots of elves

More elves

Reindeer and a couple of stockings

More reindeer. We only put out about 25% of the vintage reindeer that we have.

Small blow molds

A blow mold Santa and two blow mold deer.

Our mannequin, Sharon, gets in the Christmas spirit and she has some creepy Santas to keep her company.

Blow mold Santas line to stairs that bring up upstairs.

We love decorating our living room. The shadow box is filled, the lamp provides a great vantage point for some old Santas and most of our walls are covered with Christmas.

We try to leave no space un-Christmased!

As we said, we try to make use of whatever space we can find.

More Christmas. You can see the top of one of our silver trees on the right. We have four aluminum trees but never put out more than two per year. This year, we only put out one aluminum tree (and one green tree).

Our stockings were hung by the fake fireplace with care.

We select a few records to display in a tension pole record holder.

Plastic Santas!

More plastic Santas and some plastic angels and choir members.

A few more plastic Santas.

Plastic snowmen! 

We have a 1950's metal cabinet in our kitchen that we fill with Christmas things.

The bottom two shelves of the metal cabinet.

The top and top shelf of the metal cabinet.

Some of our Christmas salt and pepper shakers.

We even do a little decorating in the bathroom. The pink octopus toilet paper caddy gets a Christmas hat and we bring out all of the Christmas rubber ducks.

We were glad that the decorating was all done. Next year, we promised each other that we would find a way to get it done sooner! 

Christmas Eve always begins with dinner at Monica's sister's house. This was their beautiful tree. 

The kids get to open some of their presents.

Later, we go to Monica's dad's house where we await Santa's visit each year. He has been coming to Monica's childhood house since she was a little girl.

Dad and Santa! 

Christmas Eve family photo - 2016 version! 

Santa driving away until we see him again next year! 

Our Christmas card for 2016.

We hope you had as great a holiday season as we did. Although it is now September, we hope this gets you all in the holiday spirit a little early this year!