It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas ...

Born and raised German in Germany I brought a whole slew of German traditions into husband's and my marriage. Occasionally that leads to rather .... quirky combos such as our Christmas eve meal plan: chicken soup and pizza. Husband's family traditionally served pizza on Christmas eve and for me, Christmas isn't Christmas unless it's heralded by a bowl of steaming chicken soup for lunch on Christmas eve. No kidding. Ask my Mom about the Beef broth debacle from a couple of years ago. It wasn't pretty.

One of our family's traditions was that no Christmas decoration showed up until the first of December or the first Sunday of Advent. After that, the house was fair game. Slowly, over the next couple of weeks, we'd add Christmas decorations building up to the grand finale that was the arrival of the Christmas tree (always fresh! never plastic) just a few days before Christmas eve.

We'd decorate the tree and it would remain unlit until Christmas Eve. In our family, presents are delivered by the "Christkind" (aka the Christ child although it's usually depicted as a golden-haired and rather girly angel) on Christmas eve. The benefit of that is that you never have to wreck your brain trying to find a solution to keep your children from waking you at o'dark on Christmas morning.

Anyways, what with the quirky combo of German and American traditions in our house we started decorating the Ugly Duckling just in time for the first of Advent. I have added bits and bops of Christmas decorations here and there but the tree has still to arrive. It's tentatively slated for this weekend but there's no rush (for me). Our filled stockings magically appear on Christmas eve after chicken soup lunch and pizza dinner, and Santa drops off the remainder of the blessings on Christmas morning.

Anyways, I thought you might enjoy a few pre-Christmas glimpses from the Ugly Duckling so here it goes:


The chalkboard (Love Love LOVE it!) has become our personal countdown to Christmas. I'm always hovering between giddy excitement and barely suppressed panic when I look at the number of days left. How on earth does time fly by so fast? Sheesh!

We added a garland and sparkly lights to our fireplace mantle. While we did have two fireplaces at our old Silver Street home, neither of them were in the livingroom and we enjoy this glittery glimmery eye candy the most. I found those beautiful vintage brass colored glitter snow flakes at Walmart of all places and they are THE.BEST! I'd coat my entire house with them if I could :o)



Our advent wreath. This year I'm loving it simple with some greenery, holly twigs, snow-dusted pine cones and some berries and candy canes for a pop of color.

Our door wreath got a little tweak too and now sports a bright red bow with bells (no whistles) and a fir garland. For starters :o)

Next stop, outdoor lights!