It Takes a Village (and Second Hand Stores) to Decorate Our Apartment for Jul-tide

When we moved into our apartment in August, we found a closet shelf full of items left behind from former North Park professors.  Many of these were labeled as Christmas decorations...a tree, lights, a hanging star, a ljusstake/candelabra and some ornaments. A special shout-out goes to John and Beth Hjelm for many of their contributions and to Rachelle for the balcony lights.  Thank you!!

E and M wanted to put up the Christmas tree before they left .

If you look towards the top of the tree, you will see a second star that M made.

After the girls left, I moved the tree to create more floor space.
The second star still hangs on the tree as a reminder of the girl who placed it there.


The pillows on the couch are slipcover-style over the original orange pillows.
With the borrowed sewing machine, these were projects sewn this fall.

I also sewed slipcover-style covers to go over the cat print pillows Rachelle left behind.
Rachelle also left behind the balcony lights with a note on how they were to be hung.


It looks so pretty twinkling in the evening hours - our darkness starts now at about 3:21 in the afternoon and is over about 8:20 in the morning.

I also love the ljusstake/candleabra which is on about 24 hours a day.
  In the foreground are 6 little kid figures
playing in the snow - I bought these at the tomten store this fall.

The rest of our decorations were picked up at various Second Hand stores. In particular, I look for cute tomten made out of wood and goats to hang around with them.


Who left these two goats behind?  They look so cute with my braided-hair flicka!
Our front entry mailbox is decorated with red hearts that were also found at the Second Hand store.


Doing some decorating for the holidays was such fun.  Once we return home right before Christmas, it's unlikely I'll do any decorating there.  That makes this Advent Season here in Sweden all the more festive plus...
we are having visitors arrive soon and I want to be ready for them!

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