Decorating?

I am not blessed with decorating talents. I love Edith Schaeffer's book Hidden Art because she makes creating beauty in the home seem so effortless. However, any decorating is a huge effort for me and does not come easily.

This home tour has been on my list of things to dread for almost a year now. We're in the final week and I'm having nightmares every night. It's silly! I know this is a wonderful opportunity to get to meet our neighbors in this town. It's an opportunity for us as Christians to show hospitality and kindness to people we don't know. For months we've been praying that God will use us on Saturday to point to Christ, and that we will honor the Lord in all that we say and do.

If we become known as a family with no interior designing abilities, but one whose love for God is evident in our life and behavior, then I'll have much cause for rejoicing!

God has graciously brought some friends in to help me get our house ready for Saturday, and I'm so thankful for them. Melissa let us know that Steve's fiber optic tree should be in the family room, and we should get a live tree for the living room. So for the first time ever we have two trees.

The living room tree (which Joan says is "cold and stiff"):

And the family room tree:

Some ladies at the local florist's shop are going to come over before Friday to look at my windows. Melissa said I need to get bows made to go over the dining room and kitchen windows, the front door, and the mailbox. When I went to the florist's yesterday to ask them to make the bows, we got nowhere.

"What kind of bow do you want?"

"Um, a big bow."

"Like this?"

"Um... it's to go over a window. "

"Okay, do you want the ends to stream down?"

"I don't know."

"Well, what color do you want them?"

"Red."

"This red? Or this? Or how about this, with the gold in it?"

"Um, could you maybe come to my house and see what I need?"

These lovely, hardworking, busy ladies are going to come over and eyeball my living spaces to get an idea of what sort of bows to make for me. I love seeing God's kindness in even the small things!

Melissa will come on Thursday and we'll deck the halls with boughs of holly, pine, cedar, and magnolia. Until then I'm just praying and keeping the house clean. And stacking Christmas books. That's my idea of decorating - haul out the Christmas books and place them around the house.

It doesn't go far in terms of eye-appeal, but it's a family tradition to have the Christmas books out and read them in December. And we inherited a dozen nativity scenes from my grandmother, so I've placed them in every room. Ta-da! If this were a normal year, my Christmas decorating would be done now!