Preparations

Well, here we are the weekend before Thanksgiving. And how in the world did that happen? 2010 has literally flown by and it is now ALMOST time to start decorating for the Christmas season. We always put Christmas up the day after Thanksgiving.

We had a busy Saturday yesterday which started for me with an 8:30am choir practice at church, followed by breakfast, lawn mowing, winterizing the flower beds, taking down the fall decor and packing it up, cleaning the house, washing the sheets and towels, getting the cars washed, and getting my front blinker and headlight replaced. Phew! It was nice to get cleaned up after all that and eat some Falcone's pizza while watching the Sooners beat Baylor.

In preparing for my Christmas decorating, I've been thinking about how I am going to hang our stockings this year. We've been in our house for a little over 5 years, and we've never had a fireplace mantle to hang our stockings on. In years past I've hung them on the old glass block divider wall that we once had prior to our kitchen remodel. After the wall came down we hung them on a decorative wall shelf.

But I don't want to do that again this year. I've been thinking an iron stand would be perfect. So, I googled stocking stands, and I didn't love what I saw. They all had something cheesy about them, like a santa or Christmas tree figure at the top.

I decided to go with a telescoping wreath stand with a nice tasteful finial on the top. I ordered two, I'm thinking I can hang two stockings on each stand. And I can use them in all seasons with all types of wreaths and/or hanging decorations. So they're versatile. My favorite trait in a decoration.

We have four needlepoint stockings. Two are monogrammed already with our names. And hopefully, sooner rather than later, we will be able to monogram the other two with our children's names. The stockings my brother and I had growing up were needlepoint, made by my maternal grandmother. I wanted to keep with the needlepoint stocking tradition with our family. I ordered ours from Lands End back in 2006. This Christmas will be our first one with our puppy, Ruby, so I need to find her a stocking as well. So fun! :)