Christmas is a holiday that is special for families.  Decorating the house can also be a time to reminisce about the past, or if you're just starting your family, a time where you really start thinking about what traditions you are going to have that are associated with Christmas.

 Traditions are important to cultivate, because they're going to keep your family close.  When you're taking out your Christmas decorations, one tradition to start is to have the whole family help you to put them up, decorate the tree, and get the house ready for the beginning of the Christmas season.

It doesn't matter whether you have a fresh tree or a fake tree; what's more important about the tree are the ornaments.  If you have kids, you probably have a ton of ornaments that they made for you as Christmas presents at school.  Over time, these ornaments are going to be the ones that you prize the most, because everyone will tell you a story

Another important part of Christmas decorations is the nativity scene.  My family had a Lenox china jewels nativity scene.  It's a basic white porcelain Nativity scene that looks great with any type of decorations: elegant, classical decorations or colorful, happy decorations that young children love.  Instead of getting a store bought manger to put Mary and Joseph in during Advent, we had a handmade one that was made out of Popsicle sticks that took one year to collect.

The third major thing for Christmas decorations is the stockings.  If you don't have a fireplace, you can hang them from a door, along the wall or near the tree.  When you're wrapping your Christmas presents, you can put some of them in the stockings to be discovered on Christmas Day. 

Putting up the Christmas decorations together can be turned into a family tradition that is treasured and will be remembered for years to come.  You can do up the whole house, or just have a tree, stockings and a nativity set to give your house a bit of a festive look.