Wreath Re-Do, Dabbling and Sneak Peaks!!

Welcome to my Christmas Blog, A Debbie-Dabble Christmas!!

I am so happy that you decided to stop by my Christmas Blog....

Today, I will be taking a break from My Christmas Home Tour.....

I know that I promised to share the upstairs Sitting Room today but that will be my next post....

Truth be told, I can not get in there to take the pictures for the post right now.....

When I bring everything down from the attic for a particular room, it goes in the Sitting Room, then downstairs and then back up to the sitting room until I can get it up the attic so right now, all the Dining Room tubs are in there.....

So I decided to share a few things that I have been dabbling with.....

But first, I want to Thank Bev, over at Eclectic Red Barn, for featuring my post, Christmas Tour Upstairs Hall, from last week's Over the Moon Party!!

Thanks so much, Bev!!

Please stop by and link up to this wonderful party!

I decided to change the large wreaths again that I hang on the windows in the front of our house.....

Let me take you down memory lane.....

These wreaths once graced our church at Christmas but the Church decided to change them out for something else and donated them to our church flea market which is where I bought them.....

This is how they looked the first year, 2010........

 Simple red velvet bow and a few pine cones and berries.......

In 2010, this picture was featured by Pottery Barn and bloggers went crazy adding ornaments to wreaths.....

       Courtesy Between Naps on the Porch and Pottery Barn

I jumped on the band wagon and in 2011, I added clusters of red ball ornaments to the wreaths....

They stayed that way until 2014 when the whole burlap craze hit so I added a burlap like deco mesh bows behind the red velvet bows.....

I changed them out again in 2016 with new red velvet bows and scattered red ball ornaments after taking apart the clusters.....

Much to my dismay, the red velvet ribbon that I used faded so I decided to change them up again.....

2 years ago, I had bought this burlap red striped ribbon in Bon Ton after Christmas on Clearance and made bows to use for my Winter outside decorations......

Last year, when I noticed that the red velvet bows were fading, I replaced some of them with these bows which meant that I would not have to change them after Christmas when I decorated the front for Winter making it a whole lot easier on me......

You can see in this photo that I used both bows for Christmas last year.....

I removed the faded red velvet bows and red ornaments from the wreaths.......

I added the red striped burlap like bows and large pine cones........

I had bought these red truck ornaments in Big Lots last year and used them in the Kitchen but this year, I went a different route in the Kitchen.......

I hung the red truck ornaments in the middle of the wreaths.....

The wreath has a more natural look to them and if I decide to leave them up as part of my Winter decorations, all I have to do is remove the red truck ornaments......

I have been asked many times over the years how do I hang these wreaths on my windows......

Large suction cups!!

One per wreath and i have never had a wreath fall off the window!!!

I also wised up this year and when I cleaned the windows in the beginning of the Fall and changed the curtains, I put the suction cups on the window so all I had to do was open the windows and thread the wreath outside and stick it on the suction cup hook!!!

It amazes me that now that I am retired, I have the time to think of better ways to do things!!!!

Now you may be wondering what I did with the red ball ornaments that I took off those wreaths....

I am not ready to change out my wreath for the front door so I added those ornaments to this wreath.....

Now it really has a lot of ornaments on it!!!

This bow did not fade......

I have been enjoying being able to take my time decorating since I am now retired......

I was always "under the gun" decorating before for Christmas because of working so most of the time, I simply put things where they always went so to speak......

I wanted to change up a few things this year and I did .......


I wanted to change how I decorated the inside of Joe's Great Grandmother's Hutch in the Living Room......

In 2010, it looked like this.....

In 2012, I decided to fill the inside of the hutch with Nativity scenes......

I kept it this way until this year.......

I wanted to do something different so I decided to move the Nativities out and display my "Praying Santa" Collection inside the Hutch.....

My "Praying Santa" Collection was inspired by this book that I bought my sons when they were young.....

And a personalized Christmas card that we sent a very long time ago......

I kept my white and gold angels in the hutch and added some red and green vintage dishes.....

I cut out the front of the card and placed it in front of this gold filligree church that Joe bought at Bed, Bath and Beyond a few years ago.....

On the next shelf, I displayed the children's Christmas book with a large "Praying Santa" figurine......

On the bottom shelf, I placed the framed inside of the card in the center......

It is flanked on each side by a small "Praying Santa" frame and small figurine that I bought at a flea market....

In the center, is an ornament that says " Jesus is the Reason for the Season"......

I am quite happy with the change.....

That meant I had to do something else with the 2 Nativity sets that I was using in the hutch....

The large set that I won on a single $1.00 chance on a raffle at our church was moved to the large round table in the Living Room.....

 And the smaller Home Interiors set that I bought the first Christmas that we were married went back to it's original home on top of the hutch in the Dining Room, where I first displayed it 41 years ago!!

Last year, I had passed on quite a bit of Christmas decorations at the end of the Season and one of my 2 gold tinsel trees that I had displayed on the Dining Room buffet, found a new home at my son and daughter-in-law's home......

I decided to move the remaining gold tinsel tree here on top of the TV Entertainment Center which will make it easier for me as I decorate this Tree for Valentine's Day right here where it is now...

And I have a new idea for the buffet in the Dining Room.....

Can't wait to show you that......

I did do a bit of shopping......

 I had been holding off scoping out Target because I had actually sworn off Target.....

Don't laugh but a few years ago, Target was like an addiction to me especially their after Holiday clearance sales....

I was quite delighted by what they have to offer for Christmas as I was a bit disenchanted with Target's Christmas selection the past few years....

I do have my eye on several things that I will wait until after Christmas for but I did buy this sweet sign for $3.00

 And I was thrilled to find warm white, red and green LED lights!!

 That sweet little Tree was also only $3.00

The red, white and green lights ended up on my Living Room Tree.....

I had these colors on this Tree years ago and was happy to have colored lights on the Tree again.....

For a sneak peak, here is the Living Room Tree.....

You can't really see the red and green lights on the Tree in this picture but the addition of those 2 sets really made a difference....

I also re-arranged the Village underneath the Tree this year....

 I will be sharing more in future posts.....

I gave away quite a bit of my Halloween decorations in the beginning of the Season this year and I swore I was not going to buy anything else but I did see this in Michael's on Clearance and I thought it was something different.....

And even though I have begged Joe NOT to buy anything on Clearance, he just can not help himself and he came home from work with this......

I didn't say anything because I thought it was cute....

LOL!

One of our Christmas traditions is seeing Trans Siberian Orchestra in concert for Christmas.....

 On Friday, we will be continuing our tradition and will be seeing them for our 18th time, having only missed 3 years out of the 21 years that they have been touring!!

This year, they are returning to the original story that they told in the beginning so I am so excited!!!

Click HERE to see a You Tube video from one to the stops along the Tour....

If you have never seen Trans Siberian Orchestra in Concert, it is an amazing experience!!!

Well, I hoped you enjoyed seeing some of the things that I have been changing around....

In my next post, I will return to my Christmas Home Tour and will be sharing the upstairs Sitting Room then......

So I hope you will stop by to visit again soon!!

Thanks to those who took the time out of their busy day to spend a little bit of time with me!!

If you do not have a blog, PLEASE  give me some way to reply to your comment, maybe by including your email in your comment.  If I can not find a way to reach you, I will reply on the post where you commented so please check back......

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