Please Join Me for a Little Christmas Tour

Welcome to the Tiger Den! I am so glad you stopped by! I have been trying to have a little Christmas "open house" for a couple of weeks now, but my technology challenges have left my lovely pictures trapped in my camera with no way out. Last night after much pleading and gnashing of teeth (okay, all I had to do was ask nicely) my sweet Tigerfan rescued the pictures and saved what would surely be my last chance to astound you with the lack of decorating talent in me!


Would you like a little snack? I can offer you a nice cold cup of chocolate milk, hot chocolate, of course Diet Coke or water. Unfortunately, I don't drink coffee. However, if you would care to bring some along I DO have a coffee pot and I LOVE how it smells, so feel to brew you a cup while you are here!


How about a little gingerbread man shaped chocolate chip cookie, decorated by my oldest three assistants?

We are nothing here, if not creative!

Now, for the tour. For those three of you who come around these parts regularly...you are FINALLY going to see some of the new furniture. We got our curtains on Wednesday so I retook the living room pictures to include them. Try to contain your excitement!

First, the tree:

Don't worry, we haven't lost any lights, they are just blinking...a little compromise so I can keep my pretty white lights but the kids get the joy of blinking! I realize now this picture doesn't show you a lot about the tree. It does, however, let you see my lovely new curtains! The top of the lovely, yet artificial and therefore not needle losing tree is bedecked with a plaid bow. The tree is encircled with wooden cranberries and covered in little apples left over from our first Christmas together when all we could afford was a couple packages of apple ornaments and a million ornaments from students saying "World's Greatest Teacher"! Those ornaments have since found there way to, ahem, other locations, but the apples remain. Most of the other ornaments are the yearly grandson, granddaughter Christmas ornaments from Hallmark that Nana gives the kids each year. The other remaining decoration from years gone by are the little bows gently placed all over the branches. Also left over from an early Christmas with no money when we bought fabric remnants and painstakingly cut them into strips and individually tied about 5 million bows to add as fillers! As for the rest of the living room, we have the mantle and the piano:


Please notice the stockings. They are all lovingly handmade by Tigerfan's grandmother. She makes them and then hand stitches a gazillion sequins to make Christmas pictures all over them. They are a treasure! You will also notice, however, that one of them is turned the wrong direction. She made Dancer's stocking the opposite way of everyone else's and, of course, you cannot remake a family heirloom.

Okay, for the last of the tour we have my little collection of snowmen,

And our nativity. I would like more nativities. If you are amazed at the lack of decorations, let me assure you, the children each have a tree and decorations in their rooms and the guest room has a lovely tree, unfortunately it is Christmas headquarters right now and cannot be photographed! I also purged A LOT this year in an effort to refocus on the real meaning of Christmas. So, if I didn't LOVE it or if it didn't reflect the meaning of Christmas, we donated it.

Each year as we set up the nativity, we read the Christmas story and the children place the pieces on the nativity as each character is mentioned, a tradition from my childhood.

Last stop, the front of the house. This was an afterthought, taken last night in the dark, but maybe you can get the idea:

Well, thanks for dropping by! Enjoy the rest of the houses on the tour and feel free to come anytime! I LOVE unexpected guests...especially if they have good housecleaning skills! ☺

For more homes, check out BooMama's Tour of Homes. You can also check out some homes at the homeschool blog page: