Christmas Decorations with the Johnstons

Jarrod adores Christmas. He loves Christmas music, preparing for Christmas, decorating for Christmas, spending time with family, and planning Advent and Christmas services at church. He lights up at this time of year.

Our home does not have a fireplace so we had to get creative on where to hang the stockings. This was the best option and I really like it!

We had to move some things to the garage in order to fit all of our nativity scenes, but I'm really pleased with how they turned out.

I also love how the tree turned out, but Jarrod says it needs more lights. Perhaps it does, but I love it. It's nothing fancy - just a few different strands of white lights and a collection of old, new, homemade, and purchased ornaments. They don't match and a great number of them have my name on them. (In my defense, I received my ornaments from childhood several years ago and Jarrod's still live on his parent's tree.)

We usually follow the church calendar with regard to Christmas decorations. We put the decorations up at the start of Advent (which was Sunday, November 27) and take them down on Epiphany, January 6th, which is the day we remember the magi visiting Jesus. This is also 12 days after Christmas...where we get the tradition of the 12 days of Christmas.

We put our decorations up a few days before Advent our of convenience and will take them down whenever we can...Part of me imagines taking them down during the first part of labor to make sure that the house is ready for baby! If baby is late, we'll take them down sometime near the 6th. For now, we will enjoy the beautiful decorations!