On Sunday we went to my mom’s house for a festive get together.  Unlike my house, my mom is totally balls to the wall with her Christmas decorating.  Like seriously, balls to the wall.  She always hangs lights outside every year.

Can you see them?  I should have taken a picture at night, but I’m not that smart.  She has little stars hanging on the porch and I think the icicle lights are hanging from the banister.  There’s some sort of Santa face by the front door and a candle flag hanging by the stairs.  And then you enter the living room:

I must admit that my mom’s always had a beautiful tree.  She sometimes does different themes, but the red bows and white lights have been a constant for the last few years.  Oh, and she always tries to have a harp there so that I can perform whenever asked.  That used to be never, but now that there are kids around, they want to hear me play.  My siblings would never ask me to play…I think harp music makes their ears bleed.

Oh, but let’s look at the nutcrackers:

And the mom and dad stockings.  Fortunately, I didn’t see them wearing the antlers, but I did have a little friend try them on for me.

And then I had to try them on, of course.

Apparently, Kai didn’t think they were very cute and wanted to play with G instead.  Guess I need to work on my bribing a little more.

But if you thought my mom was done decorating, you were wrong.  She also had little decorations on the dining room table.

Christmas plates, a tiny Christmas tree and harps.  She has about 30 million harp ornaments and other harp paraphernalia.  It’s kind of amazing in a my-mom’s-going-to-be-on-Hoarder’s kind of way.

I love that Christmas tree though.  Each bow on the tree was hand-tied and each package around the base of the tree was wrapped by my god-mother.  Pretty impressive.  I’m actually more impressed that it hasn’t gotten trashed by me or my siblings or the dogs or the kids.  Yay us!

Now if you look closely at my mom’s Christmas tree:

You’ll see some amazing ornaments.  One might even have my picture on it.  And don’t worry, it’s a pretty ugly picture of me too.  With my hair in its almost naturally beautiful state:

I’m the one in the flowered vest and weird side-parted, wavy hair (third from the left).  Jeff’s next, then my sister, my step-brother, Ryan, and Laura.  I think I was 13 in that picture.  GORGEOUS.

And those are just some of the things you can see at Santa’s workshop (aka my mom’s house).

(My mom and Tim asked to where the Santa hats…they are that cool.)