On the 12th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

♪ ♫ ...twelve Precious Moments ♫ ♪

♪ ♫ eleven favorite carols ♫ ♪

♪ ♫ ten hanging candles ♫ ♪

♪ ♫ nine door knob hangers ♫ ♪

♪ ♫ eight dozen pretzels ♫ ♪

♪ ♫ seven Christmas movies ♫ ♪

♪ ♫ six wish list items ♫ ♪

♪ ♫ fiiiiiiiiive pounds of chili ♫ ♪

♪ ♫ four clear glass bulbs ♫ ♪

♪ ♫ three quick breads ♫ ♪

♪ ♫ two craft projects ♫ ♪

♪ ♫ and an invite to Christmas Eve. ♫ ♪

Isaiah 9:6
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

I thought it was fitting for the final 12 Days of Christmas post to be my Nativity scene considering Christmas is really about Jesus.  And it's better to post late than post never, right?

This set was my mother's. She used to leave it up all year long, and I've always admired it. When I got married, she gave it to me. I told you she was the best.

 

I do apologize for the delay in posting this last addition to the 12 Days of Christmas posts.  Life sort of got in the way, which I'm sure you can relate to...especially around Christmas!

And yes, I realize there are more than twelve figurines in my nativity set.   I'm only counting the animate objects, not the houses and palm tree.  I had to make it fit the song, okay??  :)

On the 9th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

♪ ♫ ...nine door knob hangers ♫ ♪

♪ ♫ eight dozen pretzels ♫ ♪

♪ ♫ seven Christmas movies ♫ ♪

♪ ♫ six wish list items ♫ ♪

♪ ♫ fiiiiiiiiive pounds of chili ♫ ♪

♪ ♫ four clear glass bulbs ♫ ♪

♪ ♫ three quick breads ♫ ♪

♪ ♫ two craft projects ♫ ♪

♪ ♫ and an invite to Christmas Eve. ♫ ♪

Door knob hangers?  Yeah, I don't know what to call them either.

When Ryan and I were married two summers ago, I tried to think of everything.  I'm a super detail oriented person, and I didn't want to leave out any details.  AND I wanted to make everything special.  This included the pew decorations for the church.

I know a lot of people use pew bows and a lot of people don't use anything at all.  I knew I didn't want bows.  I wanted something different and something that I could use again. 

Our wedding had a underlying theme of "Sophisticated Polka Dots" (whatever that means), so I decided to use pomanders for the pew decorations.  Our wedding colors were black and white with small touches of red.  The only red in the entire wedding were my bouquet flowers and Ryan's boutonniere. 

I lied.  The sashes for our chairs were red.  Everyone else had white. 

There was a little red on the place cards and the M&Ms in our favors were red. That's it. I promise.

I didn't want anything else red.  Once I figured out what I wanted to do, I was on a mission to find white pomanders.  As luck would have it, I couldn't find any.  I did, however, find some great red pomanders at Jo Ann Fabrics for super cheap after Valentine's Day.  They were perfect to line the aisle, and I actually loved that they were red instead of white.  It seemed to tie in the red of our flowers.  I had to change the ribbon to black, but that was a small price to pay for these beauties.

 Here they are in action:

We were even able to immediately reuse them at the reception.  Here they are on the high-top bar tables:

But what to do with them after the wedding?  I knew I wanted to keep them.  I even had other brides ask me if I planned on selling them.  Sorry.  Not for sale.

Then I came up with this idea:

They make our doors look so pretty and Christmasy!  There's been a few casualties as the result of getting stuck in a closed door, but it's nothing a little hot glue can't fix.

I love that I found a way to reuse them.  I think about our wedding every time I see them.  And that makes me smile.


*All wedding photos are courtesy of the wonderfully talented Nicole Blair of Nicole Ladonne Photography.

On the 2nd day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

♪ ♫ ...two craft projects ♫ ♪

♪ ♫ and an invite to Christmas Eve. ♫ ♪

The other day I started feeling like we needed more Christmas decorations.  The little table centerpiece in our dining area just wasn't cutting it.  Then, I saw this post over at My Happy House.  I had to try and recreate her chandelier Christmas bulb extravaganza!

Our chandelier isn't quite as substantial or conducive for lots of glass bulbs, but I did my best.  I bought two different sized packages of glass bulbs at Target in a beautiful cranberry color and strung them up with some ribbon purchased at Jo Ann Fabrics at 60% off.  Here's what I came up with:

It's not quite as expansive, but can't figure out where I'd fit anymore bulbs since our glass shades point downward.  Needless to say, I still wasn't entirely pleased with this area of our home.

There were some bulbs leftover and I had one very plain transom window, so I decided they needed to be used again in this area.  One Merry Christmas sign, nine 3M Command hooks, one broken bulb, and some string later, I had this:

Much better!