Christmas decor from my childhood

My mom always goes all out at our house for Christmas and this is something I fondly remember from growing up. This year there were five trees in the house. I think we've had up to seven at times. Dad does a wonderful job on the exterior illumination, too.

I took a few pictures of memorable pieces around the house for your viewing pleasure.

Check out these Muppet Babies. They came from McDonald's in 1988!! They are 20 years old and still have their tags!

A friend of the family painted these santas for my mom one year. Mom had a "Santa" tree for many years and these were ornaments intended for it:

These little guys have ALWAYS been on the bathroom shelf. There are mice, kittens and puppies (two each). Here are the three on the right side of the shelf:

I painted these snowmen for mom and dad's Christmas gifts in 1992. Dad's the is one on the left. If you flip them over, you see my heartfelt message.

My mom puts something on the front door every year. This Santa head is a common fixture there. I got Hunter to say Santa by using this as a prop. Except when he says it, it comes out more like "TeeTah."

For years my mom displayed a creche and nativity from Home Interiors at the front entrance of the house. The old nativity is very beautiful, but it can now be found in the little cabin over the hill. The scene below has been around for awhile, but it isn't really the nativity from my younter years. Mom's friend, Susanne from Marseilles, took a few years to send her the pieces of the nativity scene below as Christmas gifts. These realistic dolls are called Santons and are native to Provence. Mom has a few other dolls that are not Christmas pieces, too. I love 'em. I remember marvelling at how lifelike they are when we visited Susanne in Provence when I was 16. These are very precious pieces:

I love this old ceramic tree. I hope Mike remembers that next year and wraps one up for me to have for our new home. Mom won this one in a raffle many, many moons ago and it stands out in my Christmas decor memories:

As I mentioned before, my mom and dad like to decorate multiple trees for the house. One of these trees is referred to as the "Travel Tree." My parents collect ornaments from locations they visit for this tree. Mike and I usually remember to pick up one for the tree when we go somewhere. These two ornaments are from us (I noticed there are mnay from us on the tree now!). The white ball with Santa sunbathing on it is from our honeymoon trip to Antigua. The gold ornament of the governor's palace is from our Williamsburg trip in December 2006.

I'm excited to decorate our little bungalow next year. In the post-Christmas sales, Mike and I picked out the old fashioned, large bulb mult-color lights for the exterior as well as two large red bows for the porch. Dad is donating some candy cane walkway trimmers and we now have Mickey and Minnie porch greeters (thanks dad). It will be cute!