Welcome to our 2009 Christmas Home Tour!

I hope you'll enjoy some coffee, or your choice of holiday beverage, and relax while you view a tour of our home. We have a very simple style but I hope it reveals our love for Christ, our creator, who has given us a gift of hospitality and welcoming hearts. Please enjoy your time with us and may your HOLYday season be filled with many blessings from Christ, our King!

I have a love of snow, unfortunately not a sentiment often shared by my husband, but we have not been fortunate in our married life to live in many places that have snow. My husband is a United States Marine and most of our duty stations have been in desert or tropical climates. We always seem to just miss the freak snowstorms that hit our last bases a year or so after we move! Anyway, due to my love of snow but lack of the real thing, I collect snowmen. I don't have any particular favorites but love them each mostly because of the memories connected to them.

My husband, children, and I all love the ocean! That probably comes from living within miles of the ocean at three of our four duty stations. So, as you can imagine, shells and driftwood are pretty much a daily part of our decor. It doesn't make much sense to put them away at Christmas so you'll see star fish next to our nativity, shells in containers with ornaments, or on our tree dressed up as angels. We like it that way. I think you will, too :-)

Many of our ornaments are very special to us. My husband spent many of his growing up years in Germany and so we always try to hide a pickle in our tree. After being stationed in Arizona for over six years, we put a twist on the pickle story and added a red pepper to our tree. The children enjoy looking for both ornaments each year!!

We love to make ornaments and give them away as gifts. There is always love put into each one. I'm disappointed this year that we weren't able to make any ornaments so far. We've just had too much going on, and been away from our own home for too many weeks. Who knows?! There is still time so maybe we will have an ornament painting night sometime soon!

The spanish angel is one that my mother in law gave me. She was bought when my hubby was first born in Spain nearly 45 years ago and is special to us. I cried streams of tears when her glass globe was broken in our most recent move. She resides in our curio cabinet year round.

The caroler is a Santa Shop ornament I bought for my grandparents when I was a little girl. After they passed away, when my mom and aunts were going through their belongings, it was found and returned to me. It has a special place in my heart and I am happy to include it on our tree every year.

Sallie