starting the countdown for christmas

I so love Christmas – all those twinkling lights and shiny decorations (thinking of lights I might want to add Diwali next year in our list of celebrations as it’s all about lights too!). Snow too, although we don’t have any here. To celebrate the countdown to Christmas I decided to do the daily Christmas pictures from our house. And since it is also a season of giving, I am thinking of a couple of giveaways too…

The elf is not on the shelf here (this was a brand new concept for me) as the Finnish elves rather kindly did not use to make any marks when they were peeking through the windows and checking if the kids were nice or naughty. Sometimes the parents might make some footsteps in the snow, but we don’t even have that luxury unless I manage to find a little cabin somewhere asap!

So day 1 – I present the grand(est) tree in our house and Christmassy-red candles in new holders

Finally – red candles. Lighting advent candles every Sunday before Christmas used to featured in Finnish kids programs on TV…

I grew up associating red with Christmas, so our downstairs red furniture is just perfect for the season. These little candlesticks were an Ikea find for about $2 each recently. This cute ornament was a present from a good friend in England – somehow I think it looks a bit like me…