Christmas Decorations

After several weeks days of complaining and worrying about whether it would all get done, the Chesapeake Bay Family house is as ready as it's ever gonna get finally ready for Christmas.

Yes, that's an inflatable snowman sitting on my front porch.
Also, yes, that is a rope light hanging around the window.
They're not just for outside.
Are they?

For my mother's birthday this Christmas Eve, we're planning a big family seafood dinner.


The dinner will be big, the family isn't really that big.  Also, it's not a family of seafood.  That sentence sure was poorly written. Let me try again.

For my mother's birthday on Christmas Eve, the entire Chesapeake Bay Family will sit down to a big seafood dinner.

There. That's a little better.

Yep.  That's a Santa Claus hanging on the wall back there.
And those are tacky cheap Dollar Store decorations hanging from the chandelier.

I have a whole shelf dedicated to Santa Clauses that I picked up at thrift stores over the years. Those wooden birds live on this shelf  year round, and they look forward to this one time of the year when they have some company.

Below is an example of my mother's incredible artwork.  She painted that Santa Claus on an old coffee can a long time ago. I love it.

One of my favorite thrift store finds is the nautical Santa Claus below.

Here's my artificial Christmas tree in all its  gory  glory. This thing and I have a love/hate relationship.  We go about sixteen rounds every year when I try to haul it up and down the basement steps.

It's brutal, but worth it. The Chesapeake Bay Children won't let me light a match to it like I want to retire it and get a smaller tree.

Speaking of my kids, they made the snowman below.  Chesapeake Bay Son fashioned that hat out of some marsh grass, and they took a tine from a plastic fork to make the nose.  This is another one of my favorite decorations.

Merry Christmas!