Christmas at The Church House

In the beginning of December, we were ready to bring in the Christmas spirit and break out our beloved Christmas chest. This big, antique chest holds everything of ours that has to do with Christmas....lights, ornaments, candles, decorations, etc. Well, everything except for our imitation Christmas tree that is tucked way up in the attic.

We had such a great time last year picking out a real tree that we decided to do it again this year. So, first things first, we went up to my brother's land in beautiful Garden Valley and picked ourselves out a great big tree......

It was so big with such a large girth that we had to get a running start to shove it through the front door! Ellie got to put on the star.....

I decided to go with the color theme of golds, whites, and red. I came up with the idea of using these old handkerchiefs (that used to hang in the guest room of our previous home) to make little angels for the tree. I just stuck a cotton ball in the middle and tied some yarn around and poked out the corners to make wings. I didn't know what I was doing, I just "winged" it....but thought they turned out pretty well. And so quick and easy..........

I added fabric I had on hand to make garlands and some old decorations that matched the color theme I was going for........

......along with doilies that looked like our paper snowflakes.....

On the 9th of December we had a big program for our woman's church group. Here, 45 chairs were set out (the most people we've had in our home since we moved in!), and the Christmas tree and stage were ready for the program................

During the program......

The program was great. It seemed like the perfect setup with piano, stage, pew for the performers, and enough room for all the chairs.

Here's what the house looked like at night. Dustin hung the wreath on the bell tower and I put out some strings of lights all the way up the stairs and along the path to the door. This helped with people being able to see coming up the stairs on such a dark night.......

Our staircase......

My mom painted this tree a year or so ago and I loved it here above a doorway with a splash of red berries........

Last Sunday night we had our much anticipated "Christmas Music Soiree". A few weeks ago, Dustin threw out the idea during a church choir practice of having a night of talented musical performances. He immediately got some enthusiastic responses so we decided to go for it.

We made and gave out some nice invitations but also told people, word of mouth, so we were not really sure how many people would actually come. When Dustin and I sat down to figure out a possible number of people we started thinking, "Uh oh". Was there going to be enough room? We have lots of chairs but still had to borrow from friends and the church. 76 chairs were set up and we had plan B and C if more than that showed up.

Well, over 90 people showed up! Even during a snow storm! You can see below there were lots of kids sitting on the carpet in front and there were also a few people standing in the back too......
The program was fantastic. I think it exceeded my expectation. Here are a few pictures......

The Pinder family performing some bluegrass Christmas tunes....awesome!.......

Sis-in-law, Sara Simpson, performing the song Breath of Heaven. Beautiful, goosebump producing performance. The acoustics made her voice sound amazing.......

Loved this quartet of talented young men in our ward. They sang Angels We Have Heard on High.......

Dustin did this great song called Christmas in The Trenches with Randy Pinder on guitar and Spencer Madsen on the cello. It's a true story from World War I about how the fighting and bombs stopped on Christmas Day and the opposing troops ended up spending the day together. It was very moving and more than a few in the audience were drying their eyes afterward......

There were about ten other great performances.....a fun piano duet, a poem reading, and even a couple of rapped Christmas tunes. Very fun night! Thanks to all the performers! It was so fun to see friends we haven't seen in a long time too. I think we had so much fun we just might make this an annual tradition! We'll be sure and figure out how to set up more chairs! :-)

So, I forgot to take pictures of the food and drink tables last night so here's the aftermath this morning......

We set the dining room table up in the kitchen and it was FULL of yummy goodies that everyone brought last night!........

Good times!

The Skeletons in Our Closet

One of the biggest issues of living here is not the lack of SPACE.....it's the lack of closet, cupboard and shelf space. I love organization and order so this has been a challenge for me but this is how a handy hubby meets the challenge.

The room next to the living room is being used as an office/ guest bedroom / "junk room". It's the only place we've been able to stick extra furniture and boxes that we haven't been able to unpack....boxes of sewing supplies, wrapping paper, pictures, scrapbook materials, photo albums, etc.

We decided that a closet would be the best way to tuck everything away. Here's a picture of Dustin getting started. Note all the boxes and junk everywhere....that whole back wall was stacked boxes with no place to go!...........



Luckily, we had a lot of leftover materials to do the job.........




Here is Dustin painting the inside of the closet......


After a hard day's labor, Dustin finally came out of the closet....(I just had to fit that in somewhere). And then my work of organizing began.

This is what it looks like today. It still needs to be painted and closet doors put on, but that's going to have to wait until AFTER the holidays. YEA! A place for everything and everything in its place! You can't tell, but there's even another shelf way above, and hooks in the front corners to hang things too!.........

So, the closet organizing shelves came from where else???? Craigslist!! Brand new, never opened, way cheap!

Ahhh, love going right to that needed Christmas paper now instead of the writing on the side of a box that is of course at the bottom of two other boxes! hee hee. Thanks again, Babe!