Tour Of Homes

December must be my month for joining. First I joined We are THAT family in Share Your Christmas Tree, now I am joining Boo Mama's Tour of Homes. I just can't resist a chance to show off my Christmas decorations one more time!

Before we get started let me tell you a little something about my house. We are on the third and fourth floors of an apartment building in Frankfurt, Germany. An old apartment building with all the charm of army barracks. Our housing was assigned to us. Trust me, I wouldn't volunteer to haul four kids, all the groceries and trash up and down all those stairs every day. Oh yeah, did I mention there is no elevator? The topper is the furniture, which while in good shape and perfectly functional, is not exactly to my taste. OK ready? On with the tour!

Here is the outside view of our Christmas decorations. We can't do much decorating outside for obvious reasons but we do have some lights and the tree up in the windows. I think it is festive. By the way I took this picture at 7:35 this morning when walking the kids to the school bus. Yep, it was still dark. Welcome to Germany!

I already posted pictures of my big tree so I will move onto other decorations. This year I am very pleased with the china cabinet. This is one of those pieces of furniture I used to consider useless until the foreign service stuck me in a house with one. Do you know you don't have to dust all the nick-knacks every week when they are behind glass? Who knew? This year I put the nativity scene plates in it since it is a cabinet designed for dishes. I also set up the Christmas in the woods scene from Charming Tails. I love the way it came out and all of it is safe from sticky little fingers. Woo-hoo!


Here is the mini tree complete with Santa taking a nap. And did you ever see a better use for a vintage deviled egg holder? It's just perfect for holding those hand painted glass ornaments. The cast iron muffin pan is pulling duty this Christmas holding nuts. The kids love to crack and eat nuts. Then they chip the nut bowl by throwing the nut cracker back on top of the nuts. Hopefully they won't manage to crack cast iron!



I tried to get a good picture of the windows to no avail. This is the best I can do. The windows are my favorite this year. I have snow flake window clings as well as hanging ornaments and the kids are working on cut paper snow flakes to add to the mix. We have really wide window sills so I have used them to display all kinds of things. It adds some much needed color to the room.

One of the few pieces of furniture on the house that is mine is the coffee table. Originally bought as a safe display for collectibles it has been taken over by the kids as an ever changing museum of boy treasures. It usually contains a mix of shells, leaves, rocks, and various icky things boys pick up and put in their pockets. However for one month of the year it is Mom's table. I use it to display some of the oldest of our glass ornaments, the very first Christmas card David ever sent me (still love Ziggy!) and what ever catches my eye when I am putting together. I think it comes out lovely.


The kids have their own decorating going on upstairs. They have made several trees out of k'nex. For the large one I am going to give them some old wooden ornaments I made during college and I think they are going to make paper chains to liven it up. Makes a fun project!

















Wow this is a long post, and there is so much I haven't talked about: bows on pictures and sconces, pillows on chairs, stockings on the staircase, bells on door handles, poinsettias in pots, spray snow on windows, and most importantly mistletoe overhead. I could go on and on, but I will stop here and wish you a Merry Christmas!