Xmas Frenzy

Does anyone else find it hard to stop shopping? I finished buying presents for everyone on my list days ago, but I've been finding myself going out to Macy's anyways. I'm drawn to their "One Day Sale" even though I know it's nothing special since they stretch their "One Day" to four days out of every week! So today I will stay home, put on some Christmas music and bake cookies. But before I get to that, I want to show you some of the decorations I put up this year.
My favorite room to decorate is the dining room. This year I added a punch of color with a great tablecloth I found at TJMaxx.







Here is a corner of my family room...



Living room mantle....





and wreath.

Now I'm off to bake peanut butter kisses!
--Jo

Somebody stop me!!

I can't help myself. Yes, I'm still decorating. Catey comes home from school Thursday (after having been gone since August) and I want everything to look beautiful. Every once in a while I'll walk through a room and think, hmmm...just one more thing, and there I go. Another trip to the craft/hardware/Target store and I'll be all set. This empty space above one of the kitchen cabinets has always perplexed me. Our old house only has eight-foot ceilings so it's a tough spot to decorate. In the before picture you'll see that there's really only so many inches to use, so any decor has to be long and low. The after picture shows you the pretty evergreen garland I picked up half price at Michael's, and it really has inspired me on what to do after the holidays. Stay tuned to see what I come up with. Well, let's hope that this is it for holiday decorating. I need to get baking and wrapping for heaven's sake!

Christmas Magic

I swear this happens every year. We have this amazing Thanksgiving holiday with Jo and her family, and the lingering happiness and good cheer make me so excited for Christmas. With anticipation, I lug down box after box of carefully labeled Christmas decorations from the attic. And then I open them one by one, and my heart drops. Who bought all this crap? From the haphazard collection of nutcrackers, to the craft-store collection of snowmen, it's a complete mish-mash of tacky. Much of it older than my daughter, and for sure showing its age. But I soldier on, putting some Bing Crosby's Christmas on the stereo and taking it one box at a time. My mood improves as I set out the angels, santas and snowmen, remembering past holidays and how each piece found it's place in our home. Over the next week I embellish my displays with fresh greenery and glitter, tweeking this and that until things look just right. And that's when I see the magic of Christmas. My humble collection of holiday decorations is transformed amidst the twinkling lights and pine scented air. They hold all my memories and good cheer and happiness of Christmases past. And to me, that's magic.

We're blogging now!

Hi Everyone (all five of you!),
I'm "Jo" of MoJo and I want to begin by saying thank you to our families for all the encouragement and help in getting this blog up and running. A special thank you to Catey for designing our awesome title artwork--we love it!

Christmas is coming and I've been busy as a bee getting ready. I always start with the tree and this year I have put up and decorated two. I have a gorgeous, real Frazier Fur in the family room. I've decorated it using all the ornaments my kids have made over the years, all the ones we've collected on our travels (we have been really good about picking up an ornament on all of our vacations since the honeymoon) and tons of picture frame ornaments--each year I buy two of them and put in a current picture of of my two boys. I have done this ever since they were born and we all just love seeing how they've grown and changed over the years. Our second tree is a 10' faux tree that I put up in the living room. I would rather have two real trees--the look and smell of a real tree is hard to beat, but it is sooooo easy to put up and decorate a fake tree, especially one that comes with lights already attached like mine does, but one of each--real and fake--works best for me. The fake tree is my more "formal" tree (if that's even possible) and I decorate it using white poinsettia flowers, and gold & cream ornaments. It's so preeetty. If anyone is reading this let us know what your Christmas tree traditions are.

Here is tree #1 and tree #2 Okay, so they don't look so great in the pictures.....in real life they look so much better. I'm going to have to work on my photography skills. Hmmm, maybe it's the camera.....hint, hint Santa. --Jo--