Christmas Tags and Decorations

Slowly tasks for Christmas are getting done.  Our Christmas cards with our newsletter in it are finally getting mailed today.  I am in the process of making gift tags for our gifts.  Since my family and I usually use gift bags to put our gifts in to make the gift a little more personalized I make gift tags for them.  Stay tune for a picture of them soon.  After my kids get out of school today we will be decorating our Christmas tree.  Today I will be sharing with you the tags that I made for the tea swap that I participated in last month.  I was fortunate enough to get to be paired up with my good friend Fran.  I purposely decided to make the tags pictured below because each of them have a special religious meaning. 

Here's a brief description of what each of them mean.

wreath: The evergreen in making wreaths symbolizes growth and everlasting life. The holly branches used to make the wreaths often have thorns which represent the thorn on Jesus' crown when he was crucified. The bright red holly berries symbolize Jesus' blood that was shed for us.

candy cane: The white part of the candy symbolizes the Virgin Birth and sinless nature of Jesus.  The hardness of the candy was used to symbolize the Solid Rock, the Foundation of the Church and firmness of the promises of God.  It is shaped like the letter "J" to represent the precious name of Jesus and also represents the staff of the "Good Shepherd" that Jesus is to each of use who saves the lost sheep in this world. The red stripes represent the blood shed by Jesus on the cross so that we could have the promise of eternal life.

Christmas tree: Jesus is the a Christian's tree of life. Through Him we have hope for everlasting life.  Even though our earthly season must come to an end, we will live through the grace of Jesus in Heaven.

I included a box of yummy macaroons with the tea bags that I sent to her.

This is the awesome creation that Fran made for me.  The tags are made out of acrylic.  She used rub ons to decorate each one.  What a great idea to put the tags in an accordion book.

These are the onolicious cookies and teas that she included.

Before I end I'd like to share a some of the decorations that I have up so far at my house.  This is my mini Disney themed tree.  It was my daughter's fabulous idea to put Tsum Tsums under the tree.

Here is our fireplace

and our front porch.

I started collecting nutcrackers a few years ago.  This is the most recent one that I purchased.  I couldn't resist getting it.

Thanks for taking time out of your schedule to look at what I have to share today.