My thoughts on faith, family, friends, and fiction! 

Welcome to another Monday’s Musings!  This week’s question is, what is your favorite Christmas decoration?

You can see the cowardly lionat the top of the tree.

This weekend, our family went winding through the neighborhoods of our city, looking for festive decorations that we could include in our Annual Christmas Scavenger Hunt.  It is our favorite thing to do every year.  We pack up the kids and go looking for some insanely decorated yards, something unique and different.  Then my husband and I settle down and write the list – a jaunty little rhyme that is just as fun to write as looking for the decorations it depicts.

I realized, as much as we love looking at lights, we never decorate the outside of our house.  We have a wreath, and the Nativity window decals that my kids put up every year.  But other than that, it is inside decorations only.

My favorite inside decoration has to be the tree.  We place our nativity scene underneath, nestled in a bed of snow (well, that fluffy white stuff that is supposed to look like snow).  I think the reason I love our tree is because of the childhood memories that are tied to it.  My mom made all of our ornaments.  We had Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the three wise men, Dorothy and Wizard of Oz characters, owls (I know…not very Christmasy, but we had them), little drummer boys, snowmen, Santas…all handsewn.  We had our favorites, and each of us girls would want to put of this one or that one.  It was a family affair, putting the tree together (it was one of those match the color with the branch tip style of tree), putting the lights up, and then the ornaments.

When my parents left for China, I got the Christmas tree and we all divvied up the ornaments, chosing our favorites.  But when I had to run from my abusive ex, it got left behind…along with a lot of other homemade treasure from my mom.

The other family favorite was my mom’s homemade advent calendar. Each day you got to turn over the number, and it would reveal a nativity scene.  I have scoured the internet for this, and can’t find anything like it.  I have a Christmas tree calendar, and the kids move the stocking closer each day…but it’s not the same as revealing the beautiful picture of Christmas.

I am not as crafty as my mom, but I did make our stockings.  My husband has a cowboys stocking, my daughter a frilly, princess ballerina stocking…nothing wow, just sewn together themed fabric that suits their personalities.  But I would love to make some of the treasured decorations that I grew up with.

I am hoping our kids grow up and remember the scavenger hunt as a great family tradition, one filled with lots of laughter and fun.

So what is your favorite Christmas decoration?