I Will Honour Christmas In My Heart

I will honour Christmas in my heart,
and try to keep it all the year.
I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future.
The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me.
I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!

~ Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

Tuesday, November 22, 2022

Christmas Front Porch and Yard, Christmas Home Tour, 2022

 
 


 

    

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

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

  Every room in our townhouse has a different Christmas Theme and Color Scheme!!
 
 I prove that you do not have to live in a large home to have several Trees, over 20, in all shapes and sizes!!

The majority of my Christmas decorations are placed in the same room every year and I know that this is not what most Decorator's care for but to me, it like seeing old friends again when I decorate each year for Christmas as many of my decorations were gifts from family and friends........... 

I do try to add a few new things and change up things a bit but for the most part, these decorations are part of my Christmas Traditions and bring back a lot of treasured memories.....


I am now posting 3 times a week !!!
 
 I will be posting on TUESDAY, THURSDAY and SATURDAY
 

  As always, click on each picture if you would like to enlarge it....

 

Today, I will be sharing how I decorated the Front Porch and Yard for Christmas and made a few changes from last year..... 

 

In my last post, I shared the remainder of the upstairs Sitting Room decorated for Christmas including the "hearth" area of my faux fireplace and a few vignettes....







  Click HERE if you missed that post....

 

And now for a few Personal Notes...

 
 
 Food of the Week

Because of Thanksgiving, there were no Reheat and Eat Dinners from the WB Scranton Pens Food Service this week.....

 On Saturday morning, I went out shopping and then we went to our church's Craft Fair.....

It was 34 degrees with a biting wind so I dressed warm with this fleece color block jacket.....


I got away with wearing only a light coat because of the jacket...

 Joe and I had a great time catching up with so many friends and vendors that we knew when I co - chaired the Craft Fairs and was a vendor!

I did not buy any crafts but I did buy Food!! 

I bought 2 orders of Deacon Mike's delicious home made Haluski to bring home....

 Haluski is buttered noodles and cabbage and is an Eastern European dish....

And church secretary Maryann's great homemade meatballs and sauce...


 I used the meatballs for a topping on a Price Chopper pizza for Dinner!! 

 

 
It was delicious!!!

 Jersey Mike's donated 20 % of their sales last weekend to Feeding America so we thought we would help out and ordered Take Home on Sunday....

Our local Jersey Mike's is located right up at the top of the hill at the entrance into our development and the apartment complex where both our sons live....

I got the Chicken, Bacon Ranch Hoagie..

Joey got a Chicken Chessesteak...


  And Joe got a Jersey Shore which is an Italian Hoagie....


 So good.....
 

Today we continue my Christmas Home Tour....

 

I already shared the entire upstairs so let's see how long it took me to decorate the upstairs and how many Trees I decorated so far ....

Master Bedroom- 2 Days

Trees #1 and #2

Upstairs Bathroom - 1 Day

Tree #3

Upstairs Hallway - 1 Day

Tree #4

Craft Room - 2 Days

Trees #5, #6 and #7

Sitting Room - 4 Days

Trees #8, #9 and #10

10 days and 10 Trees....

So Far....


Last year after Christmas, I began planning the changes I would make to the front of the house for Christmas this year....

This is what it looked like in 2021......

I knew it was time to pass on the large wreaths that I used on my windows and in the center of the house after 10 years and 4 makeovers of them.....

 I donated them to Salvation Army along with the wreath from the front door....

 After buying this ribbon on Clearance after Christmas last year, I made new smaller wreaths for the windows....

And this year, I made "boughs" for the window sills....

I also painted a wooden star that Joe bought from the Amish Farmer who sets up stands of produce in the Summer at the convenience store down the road from us....

And added a small wreath to the center of it....

This is now how the house looks with new wreaths, boughs on the window sills and the star hung in the middle of the house

First, we will take a look at the house up close and go back down into our parking lot a little later in this post.....


I had hoped to have been able to take pictures with a bit of snow on the decorations but so far, that has not happened so hopefully, when I do my whole House Tour, I will be able to share those pictures.....


 
 
 
There are are few more changes this year to the front of the house....


Not only did I make the bows for the new wreaths but I also made a bunch of bows, using another plaid ribbon that I already had.....


I figure these will transition nicely into Winter decorations as many of my non Santa like decorations will stay out until the end of February.....


Let's start with one of the first things you see when you come up the steps from our parking lot and approach our front porch....


This black urn is new this year as it was the base of an artificial Tree that I had out back in the Patio for a few years that saw it's last day this past Summer.....


Ignore Joe's silly looking white socks and sandals!!

LOL!!

For many years, I have been using greenery cut from the trees on the side of our road to fill in the pots in front of our house for the Winter.....

This is what I did with the black urn.....

I bought the birch tree branches in Target a few years back and added some faux greenery, pine cones  and the red berry bush to the real greens.....



Remember I live in a townhouse so my neighbor's porch is right next to mine....


Along the railing that separates them.....


I attach garland to the railing.....


The lighthouse I made ....


A SNOW sign hangs between the houses....


I added faux and real greenery to this pot that I placed on top of the red milk can....
 



New bows in the corners of the garland around the front door....
 

I also made a new wreath for the front door.....


Snowflakes hung on the garland and a large Dollar Tree snowflake hung above the door.....


They will stay there until February as part of my Winter decorations.....



The "weeping" mortar allows my to hang things from it....




There is my new Star hanging in the center of the house....



As per tradition, the wood sled that my son Jimmy made for me in Cub Scouts and the wood reindeer that my son Joey made for me in Cub Scouts, grace the front porch every year!!




I added a bow to the front porch light....
 
 
 
 And one to my childhood sled.....


Which has graced my front porch for the last 44 years....



The sign on the sled was bought at Target many years ago!!



On the other side of the porch light.....



The snowman was bought at Wegman's....


 
I decorated the Tree that lights up our front porch year round....


Along with this post....


I bought this tin stocking many years ago at one of my favorite places at Christmas, Country Folk Gifts, which is now permanently closed.....


The Christmas mail box cover on the mail box where we keep gardening tools....




New bows on the garland on the porch railing....


 
I like the difference that the new bows make....


Now let's take a look at the yard.....
 
The flower bed in front of the Living Room window....


The new wreath and bough on the window sill......



I added real greenery, birch tree branches and red berries to these pots which were in front of the porch railing during the Summer


 It will be easier to shovel the snow without the pots in front of the porch railing in the Winter.....
 
I moved my chippy angel into this flower bed for the Winter....




I also added greenery to the long flower boxes on the retaining wall between my house and the neighbor's on the other side.....


I bought a new set of Warm White LED net lights to cover both of the shrubs in this flower bed....




In the flower bed on top of our slope......

 I moved the red watering can from the back to the front and filled it with greenery from the trees on our road.....
 

My park bench.....

I made new bows for the front and back of the Lamp Post.....

And wrapped it in lighted garland with snowflakes and a cardinal on it.....

An owl, a gnome and a new bow for the lantern on top of the bench.....

A red bell.....

 
And a red lantern hang on each side of the park bench.....

3 Christmas mini flags hang in this flower bed.....


My deer are even decorated for Christmas....

And here is how it all looks from the parking lot......


The new wreaths and boughs....


Another sled in front of the park bench.....


You can see the new star.....



And now a few pictures at dusk when the lights come on by sensor....



And at night......

This was taken before I hung the star....


 With the star....


We did have a snow shower the other day but these were the only pictures I got to take.....




Hopefully, I will get more pictures with more snow before Christmas because it does take on a whole different look with SNOW!!
 
It took me 2 days to decorate the front porch and yard which included taking down and packing away Fall/Halloween!!
 
I actually did it right after Halloween when we had 70 degree weather and BOY! am I glad I did as our low's last week were in the low 20's!!!

I wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving!!!
 
 
And I hope you get to spend it with those you love!!

I hope you will come back on THURSDAY, more toward the evening I will have the post ready ....
 
I will be jumping back over to my regular Blog, Debbie-Dabble Blog to share our Thanksgiving Day feast for our family of 5, a tablescape and Joe's addiction to shopping as he bought Halloween Clearance which I specifically told him NOT to do!!

There will be a link to that post here in this Blog.....

On SATURDAY, I will be continuing my Christmas Home Tour and we will be going into the Kitchen where there are quite a few changes.....

One of them being what I did with these....


And these....

So I hope you will stop by to visit again on THURSDAY on Debbie-Dabble Blog and SATURDAY when I continue my Christmas Home Tour here on this Blog!!!!

Stay safe, healthy and most of all, HAPPY!!

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......


 I am linking up to these parties:

 


 
 Please take some time to visit these terrific hosts and all those joining in on the fun!
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8 comments:

  1. LindaNovember 22, 2022 at 1:18 PM

    Your outside is looking very festive. I have decided the only part about sNOw I like is the NO in the middle. Happy Thanksgiving for Thursday. Try not to eat too much! We celebrate our Thankgsiving at the beginning of October.

    ReplyDelete
  2. CarolNovember 22, 2022 at 1:30 PM

    Your home is full of Christmas cheer. The front looks so inviting. My decorating will be limited this year due to my foot surgery, but a little is better than none.

    ReplyDelete
  3. WendyNovember 23, 2022 at 8:32 AM

    Oh my, Debbie, everything looks so pretty! I especially love it lit up at night when your front porch & yard shines beautifully! I love that you kept things of special sentimental value to you and used them as decorations. The snow definitely makes it look so festive! I cannot wait to get decorating my front porch and upstairs come Thursday evening....tis the season, right? Happy Thanksgiving to you & yours! Thank you for sharing your lovely holiday decorations with us! I am most excited to see your kitchen! :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Dee | GrammysGrid.comNovember 26, 2022 at 1:34 AM

    You've been busy! I like the star, usually anything that lights up catches my attention. Love going on Christmas light display tours. Thanks so much for linking up at the Unlimited Link Party 91. Shared.

    ReplyDelete
  5. PaulaShort November 27, 2022 at 9:58 AM

    Debbie your front porch and yard look fantastic! I love your sleds. Ho boy, you had me at haluski.
    Visiting today from Unlimited Linky 91 #15&16

    ReplyDelete
  6. SimsLife.co.ukDecember 1, 2022 at 7:58 AM

    So many beautiful decorations! I cannot wait toput our tree and decorations up this weekend. It doesn't feel like Christmas here yet, but soon will do! :) #UnlimitedLinky Sim x

    ReplyDelete
  7. Carol BentonDecember 2, 2022 at 7:44 AM

    With the lights on at night, your Christmas front porch is a magical place! Thank you for sharing this post in the Talent-Sharing Tuesdays Link-Up 43.
    Carol
    www.scribblingboomer.com

    ReplyDelete
  8. PaulaShort December 22, 2022 at 11:08 AM

    Debbie, I love love love your front porch and yard!
    Merry Christmas dear friend!
    Thank you bunches for sharing this with Sweet Tea & Friends this month.

    ReplyDelete

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