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What’s Your Outdoor Christmas Decor Theme?

What’s your outdoor Christmas Decor theme? Christmas is the season of magic. Make that magic special for everyone in your family by letting them all have a part in the decorating this year! Just so you know, I did receive fun decor from Oriental Trading® to facilitate this post, but all opinions are entirely my own.

Last year, we lost a lot of our outdoor Christmas decor to four nasty storms in a row blowing through (hello, island living!). It wasn’t very magical, but I was determined to rebuild (dramatic much, Christy?). I pretty much figured since I was starting from ground zero that I could actually create a theme outdoors and I set out on a mission. Inside? I stand my ground. White and blue lights, a well-organized tree, a mantel that I love, an elf that moves while we sleep…the whole nine. Why not do that with my outside Christmas decor theme as well? It all started with a Santa, and surely it would come together as neatly and as perfectly as the indoor decor always does, right?

WRONG! This year (and it was about time, I might add), I decided to include the babies in my decor shopping experience. I’m frugal so I like to bargain shop. Oriental Trading Company is one of my favorite go-to online shops (because I don’t have to leave my house or jammies to shop and it’s affordable) and that’s where I found the inflatable Santa (PS – he can not only hang from the gutter as shown, but he also comes with stakes and can stand up in the yard). From there, I thought we’d stay Santa themed. Bug’s “Letters to Santa” box was a good local find. Then we picked up a flamingo and you can probably see where this is going.

We had Santa up on the rooftop (or falling off, you can look at it as you like), we had the mailbox locked and loaded, and then…a flamingo? Wait, this wasn’t the plan at all!

This is kind of where the madness began.

In the form of a 9′ lighted, animated dragon (his wings really FLAP), a redneck Santa in a pickup with penguins hanging out the windows and stuff (OK, that was my pick to be honest), a daschund for every season, and so much more. Basically, my yard is now a hodge podge of Christmas magic of the most unorthodox (and totally fun to come home to) kind.

Bubby kind of put the icing on the totally-random-I-have-no-theme-to-my-decor cake – so to speak – when he made a plea (OK, he begged) for the narwhal. We all know my favorite Christmas movie is Elf, so I quickly caved and now there’s a narwhal swimming in the ocean (it’s green grass, but you know…it counts). Byyyeee Buddddyyyyy!

So, if you ask me what my Outdoor Christmas Decor Theme is this year, I’m just gonna have to admit…it’s a hodge podge of mismatched, inflatable, fun nonsense, but it works for us, and it truly makes me (and the babies) smile every night. To H. E. double toothpicks with perfection this year. The world’s a mess. Let’s all throw caution to the wind and just have fun again. I’m enjoying seeing my not-so-planned-out decor every day and so can you. Oriental Trading® can help. I’m starting a hot-mess of a movement, who’s with me?

Spark the Magic of Christmas with Santa’s Help

By Christy Leave a Comment

Let them be little just a little bit longer. Spark the magic of Christmas in the hearts of your little ones when they receive a Package from Santa this year! You’re never too old to believe in magic! For the record, Bubby did received a Silver Package from Santa to facilitate this post, but the opinions are entirely my own!

I’ve said it time and time again (stay tuned because I’ll say it another time or two before Christmas comes and goes), if you don’t believe, you don’t receive. The end. I want my kids to receive, most of the time they deserve to receive. But that pesky believe thing comes into play now and again and it’s time we all combat the negativity in today’s world and help our kids believe in magic again. Even in today’s society (PS I hate it too), there’s a way to spark the magic of Christmas in your kids’ hearts thanks to Package from Santa!

If you hurry, and you use the code FAMS17 at check out, you can still get your package delivered to your little one from the big guy before Christmas rolls around at a 25% discount – but you have to act by 12/14/17 to get it in time! If you have a little one that you’d just like to thrill or an older child (be still my heart…when did Bubby turn nine?) that you need to bring back to the light side (because elementary school kids are totally ready to grow up and ditch the magic these days), this is the gift you want to give!

The silver package we received delivered an almost instant video to my email box. We loved it! Just a few short days later came a package in a North Pole official envelope with a letter from Santa personalized just for my Bubby, with facts that only Santa (or a doting mom) would know. He loved it. After he read the letter (he literally was pretty mesmerized with the detail), he dug deeper and found more!

He found his nice list certificate. Not a single one of us was surprised. Are you?

A personalized, autographed photo of Santa, the big guy himself!

And the absolute cutest signed photo of Rudolf from when he was a baby. Warms the heart, no? Well, it did mine and it did Bubby’s, and it’s sure to warm the heart of your little too.

What are you waiting for? Need to make a believer out of your little one for just a little bit longer? Hurry up because you only have a couple of days. Visit Package for Santa, follow the simple steps (it really doesn’t take any time at all), enter the code FAMS17 at checkout, and bam, insta magic for Christmastime. Elf status reinstated. Just.like.that!

Merry Christmas, y’all. I hope you all have a season full of love, togetherness, and most of all…magic!

My Christmas Wish Isn’t That Complicated

By Christy Leave a Comment

World peace? Equality for all? All of the riches of the world? Well, yes, all of these things, but my Christmas wish is much simpler than all of this and it is every year. This year, I really hope my Christmas wish comes true.

My Christmas wish is simple. It’s not just peace on earth, good will toward man, and all that jazz; it’s about peace and joy within my own household. See, every year, I paint a perfect picture of our holiday in my head. We wake up, we rejoice in the season, we open presents, we eat amazing food, and we just enjoy each other’s company under the twinkling lights. We have the perfect Christmas. But what is perfect anyway? My mind’s eye tells me there is no bickering, no disappointment, no negativity.

That’s my Christmas wish. Is that too much to ask?

With a large family, I guess it is.

As a child, there was always chaos. My parent’s coffee was never ready before my sisters and I woke up. Someone always ruined a surprise because someone peeked the night before. My sisters and I would bicker because “she got more than me, mom!”. Always something.

As an adult, a parent with a lot of kids and a blended family, I’ve never been able to pour that first cup of coffee or focus my camera on the gifts before someone woke up and counted the presents (surely, they were uneven in number, but not in cash – but I could never point that out, because…SANTA!). Chaos. Bickering. B getting mad over all of the bickering and bickering too much himself or just heading to the beach for a “break” (break, you know, those things moms don’t get?). Do they know it’s Christmas time at all?

So, this year, my Christmas wish is this (and it’s really simple)…let us all just enjoy the day…together. No one gets mad. No one feels slighted. No one fights. No one leaves because they get mad (and possibly drink too much) and don’t want to adult (not me for once). We have a problem with this and I know we can’t be the only family.

All I want for Christmas is a fuss-free day. For once, I want no one to notice that things don’t “look” equal. I want each one of us, within my own home, to notice that we have a good life. That we have a strong family bond. That the magic of the lights and the season, and the love we have for one another, is so much more important than anything under that tree.

I want to feel the magic that I felt when I was 10. I want them to love the fact that we’re together, that we’re healthy, that we’re a family. I want us to all go to sleep saying that this was the best day ever simply because we were all together in the day.

If I get nothing for Christmas under the tree this year, I don’t care. I’m just committed to the fact that I know that I want to be happy knowing that my (non-bickering) family is under the tree together this year.

Is that too much to ask? My Christmas wish is simple. I want my first-world-problems, bickers-too-much, non-appreciative family to just appreciate and love this year. No nonsense, no chaos, no fighting…just love and togetherness.

Merry Christmas, y’all! What’s your Christmas wish? I sure hope it comes true for you this year!