We kicked off Christmas this year right after Thanksgiving with a trip to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania for the Christkindlemarkt. It's a pretty impressive Christmas Market with a bunch of great vendors, local wineries and distilleries, and really good food.
The coolest thing about the market though is that it's located in the old steel works factory which was pretty amazing to see.
When we got back home we got to work on decorating. The husband took over decorating the mantle this year. In past years I have broken out my deer collection and gone deer crazy on the mantle. For reference, my mantle from a couple years ago:
Peaceful and enchanting right? This year the husband designed what he called "Christmas in Deadwood":
It's a little more violent than the deer display but it's pretty awesome. There is, in addition to the culturally inappropriate shootout, an impending bear attack. I'm choosing to believe that all participants stop fighting and sing Christmas carols before anything really dark happens.
I also designed an ornament pattern this year! It's a little rough and hand drawn, but it gets the job done. I'm still working on my adobe skills so maybe next years version will be a bit more polished. In the mean time, the pdf for this year is here Download Cactus Ornament.
It's a pretty simple ornament - just two parts. You can really just decorate it however you want. I took a few pictures as I put it together:
Feel free to get someone to help you with this project -
In addition to my own creation I made ornaments for my nieces using the first of the 12 days of Christmas pattern from mmmcrafts. This is the partridge and pear tree pattern set:
These were fun to make and the pattern was easy to follow. I'm not sure I'll make it through all twelve of the patterns but they are so cute I"m going to try!
I've packed in a bunch of crafts so far but I'm still hoping to knock out a table cloth this weekend. I do tend to overload my craft schedule around Christmas but there are so many fun things to make I just want to do it all.
Of course my Christmas preparations were not complete until I broke out all my Christmas salt and pepper shakers. I did get a little crazy and decorate my little display case to give it some extra holiday pizazz.
Now I'm just down to sending out cards and doing some holiday baking. Putting this all down in one spot makes me feel kind of productive - but I'm ready for a little relaxing by the tree.
I hope everyone's holiday is wonderful and peaceful. Merry Christmas!
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