Christmas Advent Calendar!

Hi everyone and Merry Christmas!  Okay it's not here quite yet but I'm taking part in Jo's Christmas Advent Calendar blog hop!  The wonderful Jo from Serendipitous Stitching is hosting again this year and this is a great Christmas blog hop where we showcase some Christmas projects and talk about special Christmas things :).

First off here are my Christmas cross stitches that I've completed:

Please don't pay attention to the matting job.  My mat cutter didn't work like I was hoping so I need to get a better cutter.  I painted the mats so they matched well.  I love how they look except for the mats being uneven.

This is my current project:

 

And my progress:

This is my first 3 colors and is pretty true to color.  I was actually able to snap a pic while the sun was still out.

Our question to answer this year is:

Decorations - do you have a favourite decoration you must have on display every year, maybe an heirloom, one the children made or something with a special story behind it?

 

I actually don't have my favorite decorations with me.  They're my mom's and she displays them at her house.  One is a giant stuffed snowman that we always display that my grandparents bought in (I think) the 50s.  It has a striped hat and scarf and a big red nose that squeaks when you squeeze it.  My other favorite is a music box in the shape of a house.  In order to make the music play you have to pull Santa out of the chimney (just like the old pull string see n says) and he slowly climbs back up again while the music plays.  I'll try to get pics of these when I finally get to go home for Christmas.  It'll be my first time back in 6 years I'm so excited!  I could never go before because of my job being the busiest on Christmas.

That being said, I do always have to have up my Christmas tree and stockings with my big jingle bell candy cane on the front door.  All of these can be seen above :)

Thanks for stopping by and for Jo for hosting another great hop!  Merry Christmas!