christmas at the floriday iveys

since this is the first year we had an artificial tree ready to go in storage, our christmas decorations went up early this year!  the day after we got back from pennsylvania actually :)  it's a tiny little tree, and his name his santa.  here he is in all his christmas glory :)

cleo never misses the opportunity to be in a picture :)

the entry.  nate's nativity set on the right.  his church gave one piece away every year as he was growing up... or something like that :)  i call it the jesus block party which makes him mad ;)  i don't mean it in a bad way, but seriously check out all those people that are present at the birth of jesus!

and now some details :)  the christmas tree forest with the bears (i collected them as a kid... bears... not trees...).  this year, i included our house in the scene ;)

the adorable cleo advent calendar that anita made for us last year :)  and my new entry bench!  complete with santa :)

the angel keeps an eye on it all.

the reason for the season!

stocking set #1!

isn't this little dude the cutest?

or maybe this guy- he poops chocolate jelly beans :)

plenty of candy and cookies around at christmas!

and plenty of red, gold, and green! (isn't that a song?)

i bought this weird christmas dog on clearance in blacksburg... good shopping was hard to come by in blacksburg... kinda creepy eh?

stocking set #2!  this one courtesy of anita!

 

 And last but not least, ornaments on the tree :)  the orange bell on the bottom right is always the first ornament i place on the tree.  nate changes it up every year- usually the one he is most excited about.  this year, that happened to be the yuengling beer can :)  also plenty of guitars and cacti can be found!  as well as a few that resemble cleo :)  the spaceship on the bottom left was this year's newest addition :)  

it's a tradition in my family to exchange ornaments on christmas eve.  last year, i gave my mom a set of lollipop ornaments (top row, third in from the left) and after she oohed and ahhed over them, she gently told me that that's what she had given ME the previous year!  turns out i had purchased gum drop ornaments months before christmas and then rediscovered the lollipops she had given me and forgotten or gotten confused because they were both candy... and regifted them.  if you followed that... then you realize what a ditz i am :)  we got it all worked out though ;)

 
hope you all are having a lovely holiday season!  we are :)  happy holidays!