Countdown to Christmas

Wow, it is December 1st!  Let the countdown to Christmas begin!  Although, I will admit, I have been counting down for a few weeks already!  I absolutely love the holidays and all that they mean!  Family, friends, giving, sharing and overall Joy!  Oh how I love Christmas!

A couple of years ago Pottery Barn featured a fun advent calendar using a series of ornaments.  Each day you would place an ornament on the tree.  This simple yet fun and beautiful idea has been recreated all over blog land.  While it is nothing new or original, I knew I wanted to do this and this house had the perfect wall!

 

We have a narrow wall that separates our kitchen from the formal dining/living room.  The picture above gives a bit of perspective.  Behind the wall is my refrigerator and well, you can see my dirty dishes on the counter.  To the left of the wall is our formal dining room which is currently covered with Christmas decor and unfinished craft projects and supplies.

I pulled together a few decorations to use for this project.  My theme this year emphasizes a deep Christmas red along with a clean rustic style.  I love our Christmas tree because it is an eclectic mix of ornaments from our childhood up through today.  I will share more about that next week.  For now, we are talking advent.  In addition to some of the ornaments from our tree, I made a few as well.

I love the cinnamon ornament in spot 2, some beautiful crystal on day 3, an apple ornament on day 5 which has been on my husbands family tree for many years.  I also added a hook to a pine cone and a star fish to add a sense of nature.  Of course on day 8 I used my Santa belt ornament and day 10 is an simple paper ornament I made with some sparkly scrapbook paper.

A couple of other favorites is the sparkly green bow on Day 12, jingle bells on the 13th, a paper star and an old glass pine cone ornament that I spray painted silver and then rolled in Epsom salt for a snowy effect.  I even simply used a candy cane.

I love the overall look on the wall.

Tonight is the night we will take the first ornament and place it on the tree.

I can't wait!  In addition to the ornament count down, we will also plan to do something special each day.  Today we will be going to dinner with my in-laws to celebrate my Father-in-Laws birthday!

We actually started the fun holiday activities last night by watching The Muppet's Letters to Santa on TV.  I have been recording a few other holiday classics for other days as well.  Have I mentioned how much I love the holidays!!!