Undoing Christmas

Company's gone. I did loads of sheets, towels and other laundry today. It was time to pack up the Christmas decorations. This creche belonged to my mom and it always decorated the top of the record player cabinet in our dining room in Japan when I was growing up.

I used to spend hours playing with it - as you can tell from the missing ears!

I packed up each piece and wrapped them in toweling.

I also took down the Christmas ornaments. This is the ornament I purchased the Christmas before we were married. I was engaged and working in downtown Hutch at a life insurance company. There was a Hallmark store on Main and I still remember going into that store and finding this little manger scene and buying it for the following year when we would be married and having our first Christmas in Lawrence while attending KU.

We have many types of ornaments. Some are ornaments that we have purchased from places we have traveled to - Atlanta, Martha's Vineyard, San Diego, Seattle, Mackinaw Island,Pueblo, Mexico, Green Bay, Japan......

We have ornaments that mean something to us - a squirrel (for our rememberences of our "squirrely" friends, Dave and Sarah), a Star Bucks coffee cup because we love Star Bucks!, cat ornaments to remember our cats by......

And ornaments with photos in them of all our grandkids....

And of course ornaments that represent the real reason we celebrate this holiday....

A friend of mine was telling me that another friend of hers keeps her Christmas tree up and makes it into a Winter Tree during the month of January. I thought about that and decided I would try that too, this year. So although I took down all the Christmas ornaments, I decorated the tree with icicles, tinsel, woodland creatures, birds, berries, and snowmen. I really like it!

And I happened to have a large snowflake that could go on the top too. The angel came down and up went that snowflake. Appropriate with the snow we have outside right now.

I also dug out my box of snowmen and placed them around the house.

Have you seen this stuff? It is awesome!!! Just put a teaspoon of this "snow" in with 2 ounces of water and POOF! - it turns into snow! And it is cold too. Love it!

I put it around the base of this snowman.

Well, Christmas is undone. I'm glad we can't undo God's love for us in His gift of His Son!

How great a gift!