It's a Wonderful Life

I'm that person.  You know the one.  She probably annoys you.  I'm the full time Christmas music, gets her tree up the day after Thanksgiving, constantly humming Fa La La La La La kinda' girl.  And you know what?  I like it...

I have too many Christmas decorations and in our most recent move was threatened within an inch of my life to downsize my wrapping paper collection to a "normal" amount.  Normal is soooooo overrated.  I'm sure Christmas makes some people feel a little Bah Hum Bug with all the added to do's but for me it will always be merry...

I'm pretty sure it's in my genes.  My Mama always had a way of making Christmas seem magical and I'm on a mission to keep the ball rolling.  So we kicked off December with our first day of advent.  I've done several different things over the years but ran across an idea in Martha Stewart aka the Queen of Craft and decided to go for it.  They used really cute striped bags but I fell hard for these chevron ones instead...

I hung them just out of reach down our hallway...

I like the idea of bags because they give you a little more creative freedom when it comes to the size of each day's gift.  I had envisioned the numbers a little differently but decided to make do with what I had around the house (let's face it a trip to Michael's with an almost 2 year old is not high on my list of favorite things to do)...

Overall I'm digging it...

The girls were very excited to get started (Carter is orange and Emme is green).  Today their bags contained a clue...

Off they went in search of gifts...

I decided to wrap up their ornament (I give them one each year) and give it to them for the first day.  A tradition I plan on continuing next year (if I can remember I started it!)...

For Carter this little Cat was purrrrr-fect!  It reminds me of her and all of her crafty, homework lovin', can't get enough of pencils, crayons, glue, etc. ways!

Emme, well that was easy, Elmo of course!

I couldn't be happier that December is here.  Maybe it's watching my girls, maybe it's the change of scenery around our house, maybe it's the Tori Burch moccasins my sister is getting me...but for me it really is the most wonderful time of the year...

Tis' the Season!


p.s. I used an app that's the bees knees called Red Stamp to create the graphics around my photos...check it out!