Christmas in the 'Hood!

Michael and I volunteered to be one of the host houses for our Neighborhood Progressive Christmas Party on Saturday, and it was AWESOME! It also gave us a really good excuse to get our house cleaned up and all our Christmas decorating done!

Here are some pics of the decorations! And let me disclaim this post by saying I did all this decorating myself. (I know, usually I'm a hawt mess, but I feel like it looked somewhat pretty! Not Pottery Barn or Metropolitan Home pretty, but pretty nonetheless!) Dang, Martha Stewart doesn't have anything on the Martins!

The outside view from the street... Sorry, this is really hard to see, and my camera is pretty crappy, and the picture taker is questionable as well.

The front door. That tree to the left is pissing me off because one strand of lights is burned out. Why does that always happen?

My grandmother had a nativity scene when I was little, and I used to love that thing. Michael's mom got us this one for Christmas a couple of years ago. I can never quite get the hang of how to position the playas so that it doesn't look like everyone is checking out the camel instead of baby Jesus.

I love this little piece of furniture. It belonged to my Mom and Dad way back in the day, and I think it even belonged to my grandparents before that. So anyway, it was in my parents basement, (those of you that have seen that basement know how scary that is...) and my mom had it refinished in this cool red color. I think it's my favorite piece of furniture in the house!

I think we did a really good job with the tree this year. No comment about the lack of presents under said tree...

Okay, heres my favorite part. I saw this picture in Southern Living Magazine where someone had pulled off a bunch of magnolia leaves and put them on their mantle with all different sizes of candles and I thought it was gorgeous! Bentley didn't think there was any way that I could pull this off with my hot mess decorating skills. I'm thinking it looks pretty good. PS- Thanks Michael for stealing all those leaves off our neighbors magnolia tree. I knew there was a good reason that I married you!

I think it came together pretty nicely, right?

Okay, so enough of that. Let's move on to the PARTY!

There were three host houses in the neighborhood, and then at the end of the night, everyone went to one house for dessert and champagne! The problem with this type of party is that if you've got a good first house, nobody wants to leave to go to the next house! I must say, I think we had a pretty fun first house!

Even Beaudog and Reese got in on the fun! Here's Beaudog telling Reese that he thinks its an awesome idea that shes using a dinner napkin for a blanket!

I must admit, Beaudog and Reese were at the late night party after the dessert party. You know how they like to roll.

So, that's the extent of our Christmas decorating and neighborhood party. I'm pretty pleased! But, now since I've put all this work into it, I'm wanting to host another party! Oh, well, next weekend is right around the corner!