Shoot and edit: Holiday/Christmas SOOC

Thanks to a very fun playdate with a few of Sammy's pals yesterday morning, Sammy took an incredibly long nap in the afternoon, which allowed me to work on the rest of the decorations in the living room.  As you all know by now, I love old stuff and that most definitely extends to Christmas decorations and other ephemera.  Fortunately for me, no one in my family ever throws anything away, so I was able to return to Texas with a few vintage goodies that had belonged to my late grandmother and my late great aunt, like this fantastic ceramic tree that she made in the early 80s (she was also responsible for the awesome ceramic jack-o-lantern that was on display in my living room until last week).

The Elf on the Shelf has been all of the rage these past two years or so, but since I'm incredibly cheap I decided to forgo the $30 price tag and go with one of my grandma's vintage 1950s elves--I figure I'll make up my own story to scare Sammy into behaving well when he's a little bit older (and knowing me, it will likely involve zombies).  And maybe I'm a bit biased, but I think my little old elf just has a bit more character than this latest imitation.

Captain Husband thinks he's totally creepy, and to be perfectly honest, as a child, I was kind of scared of him, too.  But when I think back to all of the Christmas Eves I spent at my grandmother's, one of the memories that stands out the most vividly is that of the creepy elves that she had scattered in different corners of the house and when she passed away this spring, the elf was one of the few things of hers that I asked for.  And when Sammy gets a little older and questions why we have that creepy elf out every Christmas, I will tell him that it belonged to his great-grandmother and then tell him stories of the many Christmases that I enjoyed with her as a child and hopefully then he'll understand the real reason why there's an elf on the shelf.

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