Modern Home Decorating

How many of these brittle glass ornaments do you have left, and how many years have you had the set?

I estimate 50% casualty rate for my parents’ glass ornament set over at least 30 years.

I love glass ornaments and we don’t have carpet, we have marble. We just have to be very careful. And I lose more than we break (but I don’t lose that many). Thought*, It could be that one of my 4 kids has broken them and just did a quick clean up job. It doesn’t matter too much though, I love them both (the ornaments and the kids!). Merry Christmas!!

What style of ornaments to use. Maybe a theme? What colors are in this year? Any ideas or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Black, white, and silver are very in this year. Lots of ornaments are made of clear glass with black/white things inside them. Definitely do white lights if you go that route.

Another thing that’s in is organic stuff– dried oranges, cinnamon sticks, and pine cones.

someone in the family’s personality or hobby? I love to pick up unique ones. My sister’s husband is always fixing things, and I saw a neat ornament that said Mr. Fixit with minature tools on it. Last year I gave him a barbecue pit with miniture utensils. It was so cute.

I have a whole collection of soft and fuzzy Mr and Mrs Clauses that I picked up at the dollar store. Also some cute snowmen and women. I like them because they are cute and unusual and the contrast they make to my old fancy glass ball ornaments is pleasing to me.

And I do feel strongly that our Christmas trees should be special to us. It gives us more pleasure to look at them when they have ornaments on them that are connected to us in strong ways.

I used to give out home baked cookies, but it seems everyone is on a diet.

Anyone have any crafty suggestions of unique home made ornaments for trees etc?

http://www.michaels.com/art/online/displayArticle?articleNum=as0088

How do you celebrate?

In our house, each child gets 3 gifts from mom and dad, a couple of stocking stuffers from both mom and dad as well as "santa", and 2-3 gifts from "santa".Our kids each get an ornament every year from "santa mouse" in their stocking as well.

On Christmas Eve we go to church at 4:00pm, then head over to a relative’s house for the evening to eat dinner and watch "It’s A Wonderful Life". On Christmas morning, we wake up, open stocking presents first, then under-the-tree presents, then we eat breakfast, watch either "A Christmas Story", "Elf", or "The Grinch", and then go sledding and have hot chocolate when we come home

We always travel for Christmas, so Santa always comes a day early in our house. So, today, Santa comes, they open gifts from under the tree, then stocking stuffers. Then we pack, go to my sister’s house, eat Christmas eve dinner, open presents from my sisters mother-in-law. Then, we spend the night and go to Christmas day mass at 9:00am, go back to my sister’s house, open gifts from everyone, then eat Christmas "dinner" at about 2:00pm.

Then, we drive back to Canada and go to my mother-in-laws house, where we eat some more Christmas dinner (bad, i know), open presents from that side of the family, and finally go home!

After those two days, we are completely Christmas-ed out. But, we continue on to boxing day shopping!

Merry Christmas!

Are there any good websites with ideas on how to make unique Christmas ornaments for gifts?

www.HGTV.com, www.diynetwork.com, just to name a couple. Just type the item in the search and you will find more craft ideas than you know what to do with.

My husband and I would really like to be there for the actual tree lighting, not necessarily to see all the performers, etc. Do the performances take place in the same area as the tree lighting? We probably won’t be able to get there until about 6:30 pm, would that be early enough to get a spot to see the lighting of the tree? Since it’s our first Christmas in NY we’d love to see it. Any information you can give will be greatly appreciated!!!! Thank you so much!

Yes, the performers and the tree are both in the "plaza" of Rockefeller Center. You may have a hard time finding a good spot to see the tree since it’s always very crowded, and this year it’ll be extra crowded because of all the tweens screaming over Miley Cyrus / the Jonas Brothers. I used to work across the street from Rockefeller Center and by 5 there would be a mob of people. If you want to go, it’s worth a shot. But the tree will be lit until after the new year so you have plenty of time to check it out.