Simply on Sunday

I have a big day today…after church, I’m helping my daughter and her friend make flan to take to school tomorrow (they’ve been studying South America in geography), AND my son wants red velvet cupcakes for his 15th birthday.  Clearly I’ll be wearing my apron and doing some baking!

I have a couple of things I’d like to share with you before I head off to the kitchen.  First, if you follow us on Facebook or Instagram, you probably saw that Amy and I both received Giving Mangers last week to use with our families during the Christmas season.  When I read the book that accompanies the manger, I cried because I LOVE what these moms have created–a fun yet meaningful way to welcome Christmas and keep the focus on Jesus and giving.

We’re going to use them as part of our annual Season of Giving series and then we’ll write another post on how we used them in both of our families–my kids are slightly older than Amy’s so we’ll share both perspectives.

The ladies at The Giving Manger are offering free shipping if you use coupon code MAGNOLIA.  I’m ordering a few now as Christmas gifts so that they’ll arrive in plenty of time to get used this year!

In other completely unrelated–but still exciting–news, Amy had a BIG day yesterday, because her fall home tour was on the HomeGoods blog {see it here}. As you know, we pin to their Happy by Design Pinterest board for interior design professionals, and we love our relationship with them.  This was our first post on their DesignHappy blog, and of course it required that Amy have a lot of HomeGoods items featured in her decor.  As if that took any effort at all!

Source: 11 Magnolia Lane

Last but not least, I have to confess that I’ve done an about-face on my Christmas decorating rules.  In years past, I have refused to pull out any decorations until the day after Thanksgiving. My daughter and I always decorated while everyone else was killing each other at Black Friday sales.  This year, I am already decorating for Christmas (please don’t hate me–I know people have strong feelings about this!).

Here’s my reasoning–we love Thanksgiving, but we love Christmas, too, and just because we have Christmas decorations up, it doesn’t mean that we’re not thankful and giving Thanksgiving its due.  I love to decorate, but there’s SO much else to do in December.  I figured that if I started decorating early, it would mean that I would have more time to relax and enjoy the season, and I would have more time to focus on giving and hospitality.

As I unpacked the boxes, I found still more damage and broken stuff from our move.  Grrr!  But the bright spot is that we put my daughter’s Nutcracker tree up today and she was so excited…I’ll be sharing photos soon.

I’d love to hear what you think of those sweet Giving Mangers, and when you pull out the Christmas decorations.

Have a wonderful Sunday, and thanks for stopping by!