Christmas at the Fredricksons

Hi Everybody.  Happy New Year to you all.
Hope your holiday was everything you expected (that is unless you were expecting squabbles and fights and hurt feelings.  You know how families and Christmas can be :-).)  Seriously, we had a wonderful Christmas.  Like I said before, it was very low key with some of the family being away.   We had a lot of fun with our annual brunch and gift opening.  Everything centered around Camryn.  She enjoyed opening gifts from Uncles and Aunties-and Grandma.  Coen is too young to be much involved but just the same, it was wonderful to have a new little person here for Christmas.  And next year, we will have another.  My youngest son and his wife are expecting their first baby.  I am so excited for them and me.

I don't have any cards to show you in this post.  I just wanted to post some pics of the decorations I put up this year.  It is the first time in quite a long time that I really went to town and brought out most of my stuff.
I put up two trees every year.  One family tree that we put the prezzies under and one decorator tree in my foyer.  This is the family tree.  I usually make new decorations for it every year, but didn't this year.  I decided to go retro instead.  I went through my little Christmas room in the basement and found all the old ornaments that I had made in  the early years.  Can you say HOARDER?

 This is a close up of some of those decorations.  String macrame snowflakes, blown and glittered eggs, paper geometric shapes, styrofoam and toothpick glittered ornaments and the stringed styrofoam popcorn package filler.

 This is a picture from 1972.  First year in Kitimat and my first Christmas tree.  It was the first and last spruce tree we ever got.  Always had spruce trees in Alberta, but the needles on BC trees are way sharper than Alberta trees.  All our other trees were pine.  I was so proud of this little tree.  I had made all the ornaments except to the star at the top.  The little guy in the pic is my oldest son.  He is  40+ now.
 This is my foyer tree.  I change it up every year.  Last year it was red and white.   Next year, I have already decided that it will be red and gold.

 This is my Santa display by my front door.  There is a set of mini lights going all through the Santas so it looks cool in the dark.

 This is my Willow Tree Nativity that my daughter started for me a few years ago.  She adds to it every year.  I think it is almost done, except for maybe an angel.

 This is a lovely nativity that I bought quite a few years ago.  It was damaged so I got it for almost nothing (I think about $5.00).  All I had to do was repaint some of the figurines that had lost some paint.  My DH made the stable out of cedar.
 I have one more nativity set up this year.  Forgot to take a pic.  It is a nice one with a music box that I bought at a garage sale for cheap.  I set it up for the little kids.  A few years ago, Camryn was looking at this nativity set up (below) and asked "Can I play with the Jesus house."  I really did not want her to so I told her I would get one that she could play with.   And so I did.  I will remember to take a picture next year.

 Because all of our family was not here this year, we could all fit around my kitchen nook table so I decided to decorate my dining room table.  I made all of the little bird houses and they were the decorations for my family tree last year.  They open up and I have put flameless tealights in them. 

 This is what they look like in the dark.

 This is a picture of my fiber optic village.  Love it.

 Sorry, this picture is blurry, but I wanted to take a picture without the flash so you could see how pretty it is when it is plugged in.

 This is a pic of my other village I have set up in my kitchen.  I have one more smaller scale village with about 18 houses that I did not set up this year.  Could not find the right spot for it.

 And finally, this is a picture of my sweet Camryn.  I have taken a picture of her every year with this Santa since I got him.  When we started, she came up to the bottom of the ribbon.  How they grow.  This is a tradition I will keep with all of my grandkids from now on.

I hope you have enjoyed this visit with me as I have shared some of the Fredrickson traditions.  (The tradition I enjoy most--I do not cook Christmas Dinner.  Stopped doing that about 1995 or 1996 and have never regretted it for one moment)

Happy Day to you all.

Theresa in Kitimat