Holiday Mural 2015

So every Christmas season we cover a wall of our dining room with paper and make a giant holiday mural.  This year KC suggested Santa's work shop.  It is a tradition that we are all featured in the mural so you will notice that our faces have been added to "elf bodies".  The pictures don't really do the mural justice as it is so big and getting it all at once instead of in bits and bobs of smaller pictures has much more impact.

I love that this is still so much fun for all of us.  We draw and paint a lot but we also add objects to give dimension--bows on the packages for instance.  The packages are made from scrapbook papers and the "ribbon" is duck tape because our cat would ingest real ribbons.  The star on the tree was on top of the tree in Lissa's room last year but it broke and could not go on this year.  However it could be tacked above this "tree."

Something new to the mural this year was the incorporation of KC's advent doodles.  He started doing this last year with his friend the fantastic artist Jane Houghton.  Jane actually published her doodles this year into a little count down that goes on a teeny easel and is on our dining room table.  KC makes a doodle a day and we have found ways to incorporate his into the mural. If you look closely, Rob is holding skates that have laces with a #8 squiggled into them.  There are also doodles that act as ornaments on the mantel. ( a canle and a nutcracker)

Perfection is not the goal and everyone contributes ideas and art as the month goes on.  As the days shorten and we creep closer to the shortest day of the year, things like this brighten my spirit and help me wait for the return of the light.