Today in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you, you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.
Luke 2:11-14
We'll be celebrating Christmas Eve and Day in Georgia with my family. Merry Christmas and see you soon!
In case you're in the mood for a little more Christmas inspiration......I wrote last year about volunteering with The American Village here in nearby Montevallo. It's a Southern Living house and I started volunteering two years ago at Christmas when it was decorated to the nines. I'm no longer volunteering there at the moment and the house is no longer decorated like this, but has been converted back to a period house so all these beautiful furnishings are gone now, but I happened to remember all these pretty Christmas pics I took that I wanted to share with you all. I think you'll love the inspiration and how simple, but beautiful the house was in 2006 at Christmas. Enjoy! Be sure to click all the pics to enlarge in a new window as some of them may be cut off in my blog post. 
Outside on the patio, a pretty iron tree was decorated for the birds with seed balls.
A pretty, simple vignette on a fireplace mantel.
Breakfast table.
Wreath in the window.
One fireplace.
Main livingroom fireplace.
Top of live tree.
The whole live tree so beautifully adorned.
The livingroom, this was truly a beautiful room.
The diningroom. Aren't these arches just stunning?
The antique table in front of another fireplace.
Sideboard, with walls that were hand stencilled (not wallpaper). Loved this feature.
This kitchen was a dream.
Kitchen island.
Wreath going up the stairs.
Looking from the top of the landing.
Tree in the media room.
Outdoor on the patio.
Are ya'll about partied out on touring Christmas homes?? Wow, thanks for the great support in coming to the party and sharing your home links. It will take me DAYS to get around to visit all of you, but I'm going to try, really! I had a great time hosting and I hope you all got to visit lots of new people and find some fun new blogs in the process. Next year, I'll plan way ahead and get myself a blog button!
Aren't these the prettiest plates? On Monday, I met up with a couple of other Birmingham girls for lunch out at Nabeel's in Homewood and a little browsing the stores too.
That's Sandi, from Whistlestop Cafe Cooking on the left and Leigh, from Tales of Bloggeritaville on the right. I had met both these ladies before, but we sure had a great time at lunch, hanging out for the afternoon and talking blogging! I'm still amazed at how blogging has changed my world. We're thinking about doing a BIG Birmingham blogger day after the first of the year, so stay tuned for that if you're interested in meeting other bloggers here in town.
Last Thursday night was the Lovelady Christmas party (click to read more about the Lovelady Center) and me and my friend, Lynn really enjoyed sharing the season with the ten ladies at our table. We put our heads together and came up with a tablescape, menu, and giftbag items. It was a great evening and I think the ladies truly enjoyed it all. We used paper plates for the main course, along with chargers, a beautiful tablecloth that Lynn had on hand and my yardsale silverplate, her crystal goblets and dessert dishes.
I took the Linden Street hurricane lantern with the battery candles and it was a very pretty centerpiece.
Loved the scripture on these plates from Hobby Lobby and they seemed very fitting for this dinner.
Lynn and I got our table set and had a little breather before it all got started.
It was quite hectic in there with more than 300 ladies enjoying Christmas meals, but we all made it work. There were many churches represented here that night and we all had smiles on our faces. Our church had 2 tables.
Here's Lynn back in the kitchen where we had a designated area for serving our meal. We had chicken and dressing, tossed cranberry salad, congealed cranberry salad, rolls and....
A wonderful white chocolate bread budding for dessert. They all seemed to really love this decadent dessert and it definitely IS decadent (you'll see after you read the ingredients). After dessert, we handed out their giftbags, with some girly stuff inside...a pretty watch, chocolate and some bath and body products. They were all smiles so I think it was a hit! 
Cranberry Congealed Salad
Welcome!
If you are here from BooMama's Christmas tour of homes, welcome! I'm also having a little party here myself today with a few of my friends, so check out Mr. Linky below for more Christmas party fun. You are sure to be inspired.
Today we'll take a look at the livingroom, first stop the mantel. This year I did almost all natural greens here, with just a couple of faux springs tucked in for impact. Fresh greens from the tree lot, along with some magnolia leaves that were found nearby and that makes for a great looking mantel.
This year I was inspired to move an iron mirror from one of the bedrooms here to the livingroom, where I layered it with a grapevine wreath and some special ornaments picked up last year in the after-Christmas sales. I'm really loving this color combo of bronze, browns, and greens.
I really love to pick up special ornaments to use as centerpieces on wreaths or table displays, like this pretty star that I found in a specialty store after Christmas last year. The giant sparkly pinecones were from Homegoods, again on sale.
Wish, Joy, Hope! What better message for this time of year? These 3 glittered wonders were found at Kohls last year, again after-Christmas sales. I love to go out on the hunt and find the deals. You can see one of three faux pinecone sprays that I picked up at Hobby Lobby to use right here in the center of my mantel greens.
It blends in so well, you would never know it. I love to add candle holders as lifts to hold special objects and ornaments and you can see a glittered pinecone that I did last year.
These pretty bronzy mercury glass-like ornaments were a Hobby Lobby sale find from last year. I love the large size of them and when you have larger pieces, you don't need as many to make a statement.
Magnolia leaves at Christmas are a Southern staple and I love to find them and snip some branches.
I found a few brown/bronze glittered birds after Christmas last year at Target and they were fun to pull out this year to use on the mantel with all the other bronze items.
The Christmas tree this year was put over to one side of the sofa in the livingroom and still fits in here quite nicely, even though it's not front and center like last year. I've had gold and burgandy ornaments on my tree for many years, so I doubt I'll start over with this anytime soon. I do love it when it's all decorated and lit!
JOY is spelled out over the doorway (another giveaway gift from Stacy, at 19 Butternut, thank you!). I'll show a closeup of that down below.
I always admire those really decked out tree toppers that I see designers doing, so this is my version. I had pretty ribbon and feathers and just added some glitzy golden baby's breath around the bottom, as well as some glittered gold leaf sprays. It's not perfect, but I'm happy with it.
The Tree...so very pretty. This year I tried out using an urn for the tree, since I really hate the bottom of fake trees. I managed to wedge it into a garden urn with some bricks in the bottom and so far so good. I like this so much better. I've seen urns that are made especially for fake trees, but haven't seen any this year. Whenever I find a pretty one, I'll get it. Anybody seen those this year?
Pretty ornaments and ribbon.
Thanks to my friend, Judy at Gracious Southern Living for passing on this ribbon find from sales last year. I love this ribbon, it's perfect for my tree, and it even matched some other ribbon I already had, just slightly darker in color. 
Here's a closer look at the urn.
Antique mirror coming up the front stairs with a hanging cone, found in a yardsale last year. I decided to put it to good use this time around.
Behind the sofa, 2 gold trees, long ago finds from Tuesday AM, decorate the sofa table, along with a paper mache angel.
The nativity scene is a good fit for this little side table.
Here's a closer look at the JOY letters, also from Stacy's giveaway.
I love to add pretty balls and baubles to my boxes and bowls around the livingroom. These red ones were found years ago at Garden Ridge.
Perfect in the gold box, along with some bronze garland and fresh snipped greens.
One red ball rests on top of an urn with moss.
More red balls in another box with stacking Christmas boxes behind them.
This little iron birdbath is a fun spot to change out for the seasons, with some extra lime green ornaments, pinecones and greens.
Fresh greens swag from the nursery tied with a big bow greets our guests coming in the frontdoor.
And another peek at the brown cone, filled with greens, berries and topped with a brown bow.
These berries are actually not real, but they sure are a good fake with their yellowy leaves. Found them over in Atlanta when I was home recently.View More Monday Memories Participants
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