Christmas Tree Winner

THE BIG ONE!

Our 10' living room tree.

(I have no idea how many ornaments that are actually on it, but there really is a tree under there.)

First, I want to say thank you to everyone who stopped by and entered into my giveaway and stopped to see all of my trees.  My favorite part was reading about all of your wonderful Christmas traditions.  

The common tradition most of you had was spending time with family.

As my children would say in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Clark Griswold fashion, "drum roll please!"

There are

 11

Christmas trees in my home.

One in the living room.

One in the dinning room.

One in my office.

One in the kitchen.

One in the master bed room.

One in the future master bed room.

One in my daughter's room

One in my son's room.

One in the hallway for my youngest child.

One in the basement.

and finally

One in the cupola.

Another drum roll please..........

and the winner is

Julie from SALTBOX TREASURES!

I will be visiting you soon to get your address.

I wish I could send everyone a giveaway.  Thank you to everyone who entered, but don't go too far because

Wooohoo that was fun!  I may just have to try another giveaway in the future.

I am sharing ALL of my trees with Cindy from My Romantic Home for Show and Tell Friday and Tinsel and Company for Deck The Halls Friday.

Make sure to stop by and visit all the other wonderful bloggers too.  I know that's where I am headed, I may get some new Christmas decorating ideas.

Happy Friday and have a wonderful weekend. 

I think I need a break, I set a record getting all of those trees done in one week, I must say it normally takes more than that.

The Boy's Christmas Trees

It's TREE TIME!

Even though my two sons share a room I still made sure they each had their own individual tree.  My older son who happened to have the first tree, has all vintage ornaments,colored lights and nutcrackers.  Well he is SUPPOSED to have nutcrackers all over his tree, but he tends to take them down and play with them. 

He helped me put the nutcrackers BACK on the tree this morning so I could take a picture.

That's actually OK with me, because I want him to know that this is his tree, even though I usually get him a new set of cheap nutcracker ornaments each year, like I said he PLAYS with them and then tend to loose a nose or shoe or head sometimes.

I am a little more strict on the large nutcrackers and they are usually played with more care.  He knows that these are the ones he will want to last for many years, you know become antiques he tells me.

Now when my youngest son came along we were not sure how to make his tree different.  He was only a month old for his first Christmas so I decided to take some vintage letter blocks and glue ribbon on and hang them on his tree.  Well, last year I had been informed, "mom, I am NOT a baby anymore."

  So, I had to swap the blocks for something else, but the tree had to be different from the other sibling's trees.

I had noticed that we had amassed quite a collection of teddy bears, hence the new teddy bear tree. Thankfully each of my other children had no problem donating some of their teddys for the tree.

The teddys do end up on the floor to be played with, but I am not too worried because they were really just a temporary fix.

We have a new plan for next year's tree.

You will just have to wait until next year to hear about it though.

This bear is on of my bears, I love his curly hair and blue sweater.

This little guy is only about 3 inches big. 

My sister made him, she used to make miniature bears, before she became too busy with kids and life.

I am lucky that I have about 4 of them scattered around the house, they range from about 1" to 6". 

Each one of my kids has a bear made especially for them, they sit on a shelf in the kid's rooms.

Did you think I was done?

NOPE, there are more!

This guy is all fluffed up because he is out in the cold.

This tree is in our eventual master bedroom.  As you can see it is not done yet, but that does not mean it can't be festive too.

To me the prettiest trees are the ones with just the white lights on them, real, fake, large or small.

Just the simple tree.

My poor little tree is much cuter at night in the dark.

There is still time to try to win the giveaway, just go here to leave your comment,
 you have until the end of the day.

What are you waiting for? 

Go check out what you may win!

The house is almost done being decorated so that now we can concentrate on enjoying the Christmas holiday, baking cookies, making ornaments, shopping, and hitting the friends and family Christmas parties.

I hope your days leading up to holidays are just as enjoyable!

As Sweet As Can Be

A tree for a Princess, Princess Arden that is.

Each of my children has a tree in their room.

They are just little 4' trees but I try to personalize each tree to each child.

My daughter's tree theme is

PINK!

A favorite bear dressed all in pink holds rein at the top of the tree.

I have been collecting vintage pink ornaments ever since my daughter was a baby,

 when I first put a Christmas tree in her room.

My children get very excited when they know it is time to put up the trees,

 they are now old enough to help without worrying that they may break the ornaments.

Yes I do use glass ornaments, my children have learned to respect antiques in my home.

  My daughter also has some of her own ornaments on her tree that she has made,

 or been given from various school and home projects.

Each tree is on a timer so the lights go on in the morning for a few hours while the kids are getting ready for school and it turns off when the bus comes, and the lights go back on again before they get home from school and off just around bed time.  

My children know the rules; the tree does not get turned on until Thanksgiving day and then they are turned back off the day after Christmas break.

It is a special treat for them to each have their own tree and it makes them feel special.

Don't miss out on Arbor House Lane's first giveaway.

If you have not already signed up it is not too late go HERE,

you have until December 2 to leave your comment.

Have you been keeping track?

Do you know how many trees I have shown so far?

A Christmas Giveaway

Arbor House Lane
 is having it's first giveaway!

My favorite tree in the kitchen.

The other day while I was untangling a mess of Christmas lights my son said "mom why do you do the trees?" I told him that I love every moment of Christmas and all that goes into getting our home ready for the holidays. Every task from untangling lights, putting trees together, lighting Christmas trees, hanging ornaments and decorations around the house, shopping, wrapping, baking and cooking, I enjoy it ALL!
The spirit of Christmas and the feeling of giving to others.
I love it ALL!

I have lots of SPIRIT and I would like to pass some on to you.

For this giveaway I am going to give one winner

one music sheet ornament,

one button ornament,

one music sheet tree

and one 3' button garland. 

Why? 

Because it is fun to receive a gift that is just for you.  

 I am sharing some of my favorite things with you!

Now here is what you have to do.

For one chance to win, you have to leave a comment guessing how many Christmas trees I put up in my house. 

( I will give you a clue...more than 5 and less than 20.)

For a second chance to win, you have to leave a comment telling me of one of your favorite Holiday traditions.

Finally, a third chance spread the word and post about the giveaway on your blog or put my giveaway button on your blog.

This giveaway will end December 2th, on December 3th I will announce the winner along with pictures of all my Christmas trees.

Happy Holidays!

Falalalalala

Teacup Tree

I hope everyone has had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends.

I spent Thanksgiving with my family at my father's home and we enjoyed tasty food,

lots of laughs and yummy pie.

  Friday I will be out early bird shopping with my sister while my husband and children sleep in.

I prepared my post early so that I would not miss out joining Debra from Common Ground for Vintage Inspiration Friday, Vintage Christmas.
Also, in keeping with the holiday festiveness I have discoved a new blog called Tinsel and Company and I am joining them for Deck the Halls Friday.

For the past six or so years I have been decorating a special tree in my dinning room and it has become one of my favorite trees in my home.

Yes, you did read TREES.

I decorate this tree using my vintage teacups tied on with white ribbon, white roses, white doves and a mix of large and small white ornaments.

I couldn't forget my little snow girls that hang in my white decorated trees.

  Sometimes I find special ornaments that are added to the tree throughout the Christmas season.

My children love to eat dinner during the month of December by Christmas tree light.

I have had to explain to my children that most homes do not have as many Christmas trees as we do and that their mom is kind of crazy with the trees.  My darling Mr. M. said "no, mom's not crazy, she is just overly festive."  My kids piped in "yeah, mom is the festivist mom ever."

So, to celebrate my festiveness I am going to have a GIVEAWAY. 

 Come back on Saturday for all the details.

Don't forget to stop by Common Ground and Tinsel & Company visit all of the Vintage Friday and Deck the Halls blogs.

I hope you have a wonderful day!

A Day of Winning

Ok girls it's a HAPPY DANCE DAY!

I won! 

I just got back from a GREAT!!! day of shopping at my favorite places, Salvation Army and Goodwill. 

 I will show you my treasures in a moment, first I want to say thank you to Mimi from Vanilla Haven.
 You see, the first thing I look at when I open my blog is my new comments because I just love hearing from everyone.  To my surprise Mimi commented that I won her first giveaway; a gift of $35.00 to shop at CSN Stores.
YEAH!!!! This is the first time I have ever won a giveaway.
Thank you so much Mimi it just made my day even better.
 If you have not come across Vanilla Haven yet, then you must go and visit, Mimi has a wonderful blog.

Now for my treasures.

Ignore the tree in the background it jumped into my car when I wasn't looking.

I was going to start my my post with
 "Dear Chairs Anonymous I can explain......well maybe not."

  If you have not read some of my previous posts about my chair problem you can here and here.

 In my defense it is ALL MY SISTER'S FAULT, she is the one who told me that Goodwill has some chairs I may like.  See, now how can I fight that, and I could not split up the twins, aren't they just adorable? 

Now just imagine them with a coat of white paint to cover the blue and some white duck covers to make them even better.
I also picked up some silver ornaments, a cream sweater to make stockings for the fireplace and shirts to make pillow covers.

Did you notice the LAMP!
 Oh my gosh, I was walking out the door of the Salvation Army when I spied the lamp sitting on the donate floor, shoppers are not supposed to shop in the hallway of donates, but I could NOT leave without at least asking. 

YES!  They were in a good mood and priced it for me.

  Skipping all the way to the car, I had tingles I was so excited about the lamp.
 It has the look of  PB or Anthropologie, either way it is mine and I love it.

Today I am making happy trees.

First the trees get put together in the kitchen and then we give them lots of twinkling white lights to make them happy.  They will reside in the dinning room until after Thanksgiving when they will be put into their proper spots and decorated. 

I am going to make you wait and see how MANY I actually put up in my house.  In fact I just thought of a good idea for a giveaway, check back in a couple of weeks and I will give the details.

Today is a beautiful day, so I am hoping I can talk Mr. M. into putting new lights on the outside tree before snow comes and we have to do it in cold weather.

I hope you are having a wonderful day too!