(sort of) Flashback Friday

For this week's Flashback Friday, we'll be going all the way back to... wait for it... Christmas. Of 2009. Yeah, a whole month and a half ago. Lame, right? I know. But I didn't get the chance to blog anything about our Christmas and really don't want to put it off any longer and thought it would be a good chance to play along with Tia and Alicia.

And this isn't the only Christmas post in the works. Oh no. I'm going to subject you all to MANY Christmas posts, here in almost the month of February the month of January. Will you indulge me? If not, check back next week when I will have hopefully gotten it all out of my system and off my hard drive.

First off, I've been dying to show you this garland I made out of old flyers (fliers? which is it??). I got the idea from a 4th of July craft over at Martha Stewart (however hers were solid red, white and blue and made out of fabric if I remember correctly). These took no time at all to make and, since I couldn't find any string/twine/ribbon, I just strung them together using extra ornament hooks. I could've gone all out redneck but we were out of duct tape and, besides, I was going for a classy look.

See those little ornaments hanging from the lamp on the right? My sisters and I made those in 1986. They're metal frames that we put little plastic balls into, then put in the oven to melt. Anyone else make those? They're a little worse for wear after 23 Christmases, but still totally cute.

And notice how the tree is up on a table? Yeah. Andrew can walk. Nuff said. I sort of missed having a BIG tree to decorate, but I DIDN'T miss constantly RE-decorating the tree, finding missing hooks, and wondering when Andrew would succeed in pulling the whole thing down on top of himself.

 I also made a few smaller stars/poinsettias to hang on the tree and on some garland over our bookshelf. Cute, right? Right.

My little Ecuadorian village and two nativity sets, also from Ecuador.

Our tree (with one of my little elves hiding behind it).

Peter had tried to convince me not to bother with the decorations this year. We never decorate until after Simon's birthday party (which was held November 28th) because we want that time to be about him, and we were leaving for Regina December 14th, so it didn't leave a whole lot of time to actually enjoy the fruit of our labours. However in the end the spirit of Christmas (ie, me) won out. It still was a lot of work, but what's Christmas without the tree and decorations and lights and having to sweep up artificial Christmas tree "needles" for months afterwards??

For more Flashback fun, visit Tia's Flashback Friday and Alicia's Friday Photo Flashback. Both are lots of fun. 


(And check out Tia's sexy new butt! I mean bottom! I mean BUTTON! Button! Check out Tia's new BUTTON! Geez, Amy.)


P.S. I know this is late. I fell asleep at 9pm last night putting Andrew to bed and didn't get up to post this.  I'd been up late Thursday night seeing Avatar with some girl friends. It was super good in an Imax-3D-suspended-disbelief kinda way. Actually, I loved it and can't wait until my boys are old enough to see it. It was like Ferngully (remember Ferngully??) and GI Joe's love child.