Hey, Mister Postman...

We got our first two Christmas cards in the mail yesterday, so today I thought I would share with you a photo I took last year, showing how I displayed all the lovely greetings we received.

I loved our Christmas card tree so much that I will probably do the same thing again this year. The tree, and one other, originated at Shine's 6th birthday that summer to go along with his nature lover theme. I made some cool paper owls to hang from the branches and got so attached to having the "trees" in our house, that I began reinventing them for each season. Love got a little annoyed from time to time when he would bump into the branches, but not enough to get rid of them ;)

We send and receive a lot of cards each Christmas, and I am as excited as Shimmer and Shine to open each one, especially the photo cards. Don't you just love seeing everyone else's creativity and how much their families have changed over the past year? Instead of punching a hole in the photo cards to hang on our card tree, I took the ones with blank backs and used double-sided tape to hang them from ribbon in the windowpanes of a nearby door. The card tree was getting pretty full anyway, and this was a better way to see all the smiling faces that graced our mailbox.

So what is your favorite way to display your Christmas cards? Growing up my grandparents always plastered the archways in their foyer with all the cards they received. It was always fun to see who sent the ones you liked best! In our old house, I used to string our cards with ribbon from a holly garland that I stretched across the top of a pair of french doors. I guess I have a thing for ribbons and cards, together...

By the way, as I write this, I'm sitting here watching Frosty's Winter Wonderland with Shine. He dug down towards the bottom of the book pile today after school to choose the one we would open. Turned out to be Frosty the Snowman. Far from snow weather here though. It was 65 degrees and we read it out on the screen porch... on the 4th of December!

This is a book that Shimmer received at my company Christmas party just before she turned four. There were several of us girls in the office back then, who had the best time planning the event for all of our families. The owner always bought a gift for every child, and this particular year I helped to pick out a classic hardcover storybook for each girl and boy based on their age. I hope they still enjoy theirs as much as Shimmer does.