The Official 2007 Holiday Thread

[miladymajor]

Oh Yay! I love Christmas! I already have about 2/3 of our shopping done this year. Everything is in rubbermaid containers in our "gift closet" and I have an Excel spreadsheet of what I already have and who it is for. I cannot wait until November when DH lets me start decorating!

Every year we have a baking day with all of us (and I have several more on my own lol) where we make all kinds of cookies and sweets and then split them up. We also have a gingerbread baking/decorating day that always ends up being really fun!

Oh my goodness, you are so organized! That is so awesome! I haven't even begun to think about Christmas shopping yet! Probably because I am carrying a full load in college right now and some days I don't know my head from my hiney!

I love Christmas sooo much! It always reminds me that I am so very blessed with a wonderful family, a roof over my head, food to eat and that the best things in life are free. I also love to bake Christmas cookies with my mom and sister, go shopping at the Galleria in Dallas, and make shopping runs with my mom and my best friend! Our family tradition is to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade and then have early dinner with my entire huge extended family. . .and then when we get home, we pull out the tree and start decorating for Christmas! I also love those cold, crisp evenings when you can smell the neighbor's fire burning in their fireplace. . .ahh, my favorite time of year!

[ItsmeSunnyV]

Here's a site you might enjoy:

http://www.organizedchristmas.com/

For all of you planners out there!

I recently came across this site, and it!!!

[Soccer Princess]

I also love that site!!!!

When does everyone start to put up their winter/holiday decorations? November? After Thanksgiving? December? How long do you leave them up?

[arob414]

I also love that site!!!!

When does everyone start to put up their winter/holiday decorations? November? After Thanksgiving? December? How long do you leave them up?

I actually start decorating as soon as I have down my Halloween stuff, so like the first wk of November. I really love Christmas and decorate most of the house. The most time consuming is the sunroom because I have a shelf that goes across one wall and another and is about a foot from the ceiling. I put Christmas lights across the back and then place alot of my enormous Christmas collection up there. I also put the tree in there, decorate a bench with mooses (one is 5ft), etc. It really isn't as tacky as it sounds. Or, at least I don't think so. But, it ends up looking like a holiday store. My uncle, who owns a barber shop, is as crazy as me and starts decorating around mid Oct. People come from all around to see his shop. He is lots of fun to shop for because he loves Christmas stuff, so I look for unique things. Because he has a shop, I can buy him the stuff I just don't have room for in my house.

[pbhall13]

I start putting the decorations up the weekend following Thanksgiving. One of our favorite family traditions is our cookie swap (yummy and with over 15 people participating you bring home a lot of cookies you wouldn't have time to make and can enjoy them up until Christmas) and our newest tradition is a Gingerbread house Decorating Day/Competition (adults and children). This has been really great and my girls just love it!!! They are so proud of what they each make and put it in their room as an added decoration.

[Kycha]

I would love to see pictures of everyone's decorations and celebrations. So come on everybody. Post some pics!!

[pbhall13]

here is one from our Gingerbread House Making Parties and we always go to visit Santa at the Burlington Mall (he is the best!!!!)
Pictured are my daughters Sadie, Sydney and nephew Nathaniel with Santa.

The gingerbread picture is my sister Marcie with Nathaniel, my mom, Sydney, Sadie and Me (Pamela)

[Kycha]

here is one from our Gingerbread House Making Parties and we always go to visit Santa at the Burlington Mall (he is the best!!!!)
Pictured are my daughters Sadie, Sydney and nephew Nathaniel with Santa.

The gingerbread picture is my sister Marcie with Nathaniel, my mom, Sydney, Sadie and Me (Pamela)

Wow! Those gingerbread houses look incredible! What do you do with them when you are done?

I love the picture of the kids with Santa. Too cute! I love your girls names too.

[sammielynn]

I just love getting ready for Christmas! I have started shopping but have just a few things put back for the boys. If I have the time everything in the house would have a bow on it.

[pbhall13]

After the 'contest' (and our judges are not part of the gingerbread making and they don't come until the end of the party to vote on favorites in adult and children category) we all take them home and in my house the girls are allowed to put them in their rooms as part of holiday decorations and I usually put mine on the table (if we have people coming over we usually group the 3 together). Ironically we don't end up eating them....my little one Sadie sometimes picks off some of the candy and when the time has come to say goodbye to them, we put out what we can for the birds and squirrels and the rest in the trash (the girls don't like to take part in putting in the garbage...they ask me to do that when they are in bed!)

My daughter Sydneys godfather had a skating pond and smoke coming out of the chimney. It was pretty impressive. I don't have a game plan for this year, but I like to try to pick a them. We have the most fun trying to come up with designs for stain glass windows in them (using fruit rollups or crushed candy melted the night before and put onto gingerbread...this is allowed) Can anyone come up with a good them???

Looking forward to seeing everyones pictures!!