Santa Photos Through the Years

I’m not a super crafty mom.

I know. You’re shocked.

But the other night when I was decorating our Christmas tree (we wait until very late in the season in order to minimize the window for destruction of said tree by our boys) I realized that over the years I have amassed quite a little gold mine of wonderful and nostalgia-inducing decorations for the holidays. With gifts and handmade items from family, I adorn little spots in my house and that gets me in the mood for Christmas cheer.

There are a few staples that come out every Christmas:

1. Candles – This year we’ve got Yankee candles in Christmas Cookie (to honor our tradition of making cookies with Auntie Lisa) and Home for the Holidays. Other candles are placed about the house but don’t get lit every day like these do.

2. Stuffed animals – normally I loathe these useless dust-catchers but at Christmas, well, they are cute. Brady plays with them and gives them adventures.

3. Christmas card “mailbox” – this sits inside the front door with some other pretty things my mother has given to me, and collects the cards as we receive them. When I pack away all the holiday stuff, I group the cards together and label the pack with the year. Then the next year I go through the collection to make sure any new people are on my Christmas card list. Unless of course, I have lost my Christmas card list, like I did this year.

4. Snow globes – I bought a big snow globe/candle holder from Party Lite the year Kyle was born and I have been halfheartedly collecting them ever since. Kyle was enthralled with them up until this year, when we looked at the collection and basically said “Meh.”

5. Fake wreath – I got a cheap fake wreath with a cheap red bow that I normally hang on the front door. But this year – weeks ago – a delivery person brought a super fancy REAL evergreen wreath from L.L. Bean, a gift from my blogger BFF Alyssa, who said she thought I could use some holiday cheer. How right she was. Mad props.

6. Christmas ornaments and tree skirt – the skirt was quilted by my mother (who else?) and the ornaments are a 40-year collection. I have the gold-plated engraved Santa on a sleigh from the year I was born all the way through the glass bulbs that Kyle and Brady festooned with glitter 2 weeks ago. We have just enough – not too many.

And here’s the thing that made me pause with smug self-satisfaction: I have consistently created photo ornaments using pictures of the kid(s) with Santa. I hung them in a circle – they are arranged chronologically going backwards in time clockwise.