Decorating Your Home for Christmas

By now I'm sure most houses are already filled with many decorations to help us enhance our Christmas experience! If you're not yet sure how to decorate your place, here are just some of our suggestions.

Decorate your home for Christmas just the way you want it. If you’ve always loved all things Santa, then liberally decorate your home with the jolly symbols of the holiday – Christmas characters.

On your fireplace, instead of hanging up regular stockings decorated with names, hang stockings decorated with St. Nick. Use Santa Claus stocking holders to keep them in place. An FYI, there are beautiful vintage Santa stockings available for purchase.

Gather wooden Santa figurines – you can find these in a variety of sizes from many different materials and place these in groups all over your home. You can tuck them into a corner on a bathroom cabinet or group them together in a basket on the back of your toilet if you’re the type who decorates the bathroom, too!

Put up Christmas cards with Santa on them or display them on your mantel or entertainment center. Prop up vintage Santa postcards among your Christmas decorations. Use Santa quilts on the arm of your sofa to snuggle beneath or hang them from your wall.

Put out pillows on the sofa with prints of Santa. In the dining room, cover the table with a Santa tablecloth. At your Christmas Eve or Christmas Day dinner, use Santa snow globes as place markers. On the tree, hang hand painted Santa ornaments and Christmas balls with images of Santa on them.

If you prefer to decorate your home with Frosty the snowman, you can collect snowmen and line them up on wooden shelves in the living room or on a fireplace mantel or on top of your piano. You can stack Frosty collectibles in a snowman painted wooden bowl.

In the kitchen, you can serve drinks in Frosty the Snowman glasses or serve the traditional Santa cookies on Frosty the Snowman snack plates. By the front door, you can have a Frosty greeter – a three foot wooden replica of the beloved snowman.

Make sure it’s in a corner so that if something bumps against it, if it falls over, it won’t be damaged. Set up medium sized Frosty the Snowman collectibles around the bottom of the Christmas tree.

One of most beloved of all Christmas decorating characters among children and adults alike is that of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. This much loved character first came to be back in 1939.

The popular reindeer was written in a story by an employee of Montgomery Ward. If you love decorating with Rudolph, you can buy Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer ornaments to hang on your tree.

You can also find Rudolph collectible figurines to arrange around your home. There are Rudolph personalized ornaments, Rudolph stockings and even Rudolph pulling Santa’s sleigh displays for your yard. Look for a Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Christmas skirt to drape around the bottom of your tree.

Choose the Christmas characters that remind you of childhood and go all out working them into your holiday décor!

Christmas Gift Ideas

The time is far spent and so little remaining, so are you ready for your Christmas gifts? If not, it's not yet too late to buy some! I suggest that you purchase them online as to avoid the heavy queue in supermarkets.

If you need suggestions as to what to give this Christmas, here are some based on my experience.

Mom

Mothers love anything customized. Give them a customized Christmas card, bake cookies for them or anything that you've made with your bare hands. Nothing else could melt the heart than the fact that you've created something for them.

Dad

Dad loves anything that is related to their hobbies. If your dad is fond of golf, buy him golf accessories.

Girlfriend

Girls love anything you give them as long as it's from you! Give them a ring or a necklace.

Those are just some of my gift ideas for Christmas. What are yours?

Christmas Memories

We all keep tidbits of memories of our childhood. What I wouldn't probably forget all my life is that Christmas memories I have with my family. I remember so vividly when mom would make me and my siblings knitted jackets and wrap them in boxes.

Also, the highlight of the celebration is when mom serves her special dish for Christmas eve. We would then take some pictures and videos for us to preserve our memories.

Oh I am so excited about this year's Christmas so we could taste mom's specialty, play games and open our Christmas gifts again. Most of all, I love Christmas because it's the Lord's birthday.

Gift for My Brother This Christmas 2009

Are you looking for something to give your brother this Christmas? Good, because that's exactly I am doing now too!

When I asked him what he'd like to have this Christmas, he said he wants a Nintendo Wii console. I haven't controlled myself and blurted out, "WHATTT?!" Well, we all now that it's a little costly. So I was thinking what if I give him a jersey or maybe just play online games with him? What do you think?

Happy Parenting

Parenting is probably the most rewarding career one would ever have. To see your kids grow in love and in harmony with the plans that you've made even when they were young makes one really proud of his or her children. Every parent's pride is when their kids grow up practicing the principles taught during their youth. The efforts required cannot be compared to the blessings one sees every time a child grows following the counsel of his parents.

Whether it's your first time parenting or for several kids already, always keep in mind that the best way in raising your children is raising them up in the gospel of Jesus Christ. They were entrusted by God to you to nurture them, support them, lead and love them. Being parents to God's children is a sacred duty.

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Legacy Through Family History

Have you ever thought what would be the best gift you could ever give to your posterity? I've always wondered if I've done enough or if my posterity will ever remember me, or if will they ever thank me for all the things I'm doing now. George Bernard Shaw best described what we can do so that our future generations will remember and thank us for all the things we've done.

"Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations."

You might ask: "How?"

1. Lessons

Keeping a record of your daily blessings will prove to be helpful to your posterity as they will learn from your past principles that are applicable to their present, or your future. There's nothing more precious than a compilation of great testimonies of God's dealings with His people and how you became a living proof of His divine love and mercy to all his children. Keep a journal and record the most important events in your life like your baptism, priesthood ordination, marriage, temple sealing and many other important events.

2. Pictures

Most history we're studying right now and the proof of their existence is made strong by the photographs of people involved, places where it transpired and details entailed in the records of the people who cared to record their history. Take pictures and keep them in a safe place wherein no floods will wash it away.

Keeping your family history or genealogy will not only bless you at present as well as the future generations. So keep a journal and save your history.