For our family (Mom and My Two Girls), it is a time of year that EXCESSIVE Decorating takes over the house, inside and out.  We currently store all over the house and garage, TWENTY-EIGHT multiple sized boxes until they come out again after Thanksgiving.

The usual ones are the tree and the ornaments, a bunch of dolls and stuffed animals.  A lot of holidays wares bought at church and craft bazaars throughout the years. We also try to cover the multiple faiths so the kids grew up aware of other celebrations such as CHanukkah and Kwanzaa

On the unique side, we also have lots of artwork, from little tiny pictures to massive prints that take two people to maneuver.  For these we wrap every single one of them and then add bows, garland or lights.  It really is a festive celebratory look.  The bows are in beautiful colors of purple, creme, green, plaid and of course RED and in EVERY Size imaginable.  In fact at one point I was told I had put up the wrong size.  Mom said small, so I put up my definition of small.  She came in to point out that I needed THIS size, as she displayed yet another bow.  I corrected her to say, that size is medium.....not small!!  Like I would know?!?!?

This usually all comes together while I am at work, but this year Mom has been battling a nagging cold so she was moving slower at completing the process.  Since I love the completed look and I have the good fortune of being off every other weekend (thanks to a great business partner, who also happens to be my younger brother), I took my Saturday to help finish all of the decorating.

I did not think it was possible for one house to have THAT MANY BOWS!  I put a bow on every picture frame and still had what looked like hundreds left.  We put bows all over the front of the house on posts and trees.  Back inside I started putting bows on edges of furniture and corners of walls and it still looked like there were hundreds left! 

I cried Uncle and said the bows seem to be multiplying on the pool table (our table for everything, including folding clothes).  I told Mom that I felt we had plenty of bows and I was done after 12 hours of decorating....I had cookies to make for an exchange party.

She said she'd finish the rest of the bows as she starts naming off all of the places she'll put them.  All I know is keep moving when you come to visit, because if you stand still long enough you'll be bowed!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Previously posted on Active Rain http://www.GreatFloridaHomesBlog.com