Christmas house #3.

We all spent Christmas eve at my sister Spring's house.  I don't know if anyone reads the blog CJane Enjoy It,  but she always refers to her home as "Retro House."  Well, Spring lives in the same neighborhood as CJane, so their house is our own family's Retro House. 

My parents (who have been in the business of remodeling houses for over 40 years) were even a little bit worried when Spring and her husband Nate first purchased the house.  It was definitely a major fixer-upper and my parents were nervous for  them to take on the monumental task of getting it family friendly, with six young children at home. But Spring and Nate are both hard workers and had a vision ... and they saw it through. Their style is kind of funky/cool and we all loved seeing it at Christmastime.

Spring made one of those fabulous mercury ornament wreaths too:

Nate and at least some of the kids always go and chop down a real tree:

Spring has lots of Christmas vintage items in her front entryway:

I LOVE this garland in her kitchen:

She has a tree in every child's bedroom: 

Her little daughter, Anna, even got her gnome's tree house ready for the season!

We are one of those family's who decided early on that we would have an ON year, and then an OFF year for the holidays instead of spliting the day up - so whenever it is an ON year for our family and we are all together for Christmas, we always go caroling on Christmas eve and we always sing The First Noel.  We've gotten pretty good at it too.  We are a REALLY large group so we have lots of voices singing all four parts.  The best part about it is when the door first opens up ... it is always quite a surprise for the recipients.  You don't see too many carolers out and about in the neighborhood anymore.

One of the cutest things I saw that night was Finn spotting his friend through the window:

It was absolutely adorable.