Christmas spirit fell early in our house this year. Early November I just couldn’t hold back and started playing Christmas music all day long. The boys were overjoyed with me, singing all day long, but my wonderful hubby just rolled his eyes. It was too early in his opinion!
I did hold out for the Christmas decorations until Thanksgiving weekend. It is our tradition to go cut down our Christmas tree at Peterson Riverview Nursery in Allegan, MI the Saturday after Thanksgiving. The weather was so great Thanksgiving weekend! We did bundle up, but I think it was in the 40’s so not too bad to take a wagon ride out to the tree field to pick and cut down a tree. We also buy one of their handmade wreaths.
Want to see what we bought and how we set it up? Come on in!
I don’t have a plan when picking out a wreath for our front door. This one with the burlap ribbon, pine cones, and white accents struck me this year. Although I don’t have a theme, I tend to shy away from traditional red bows and such. Isn’t this one lovely? They last forever too. I usually keep ours up until March or until I’m REALLY embarrassed that our front door is still decked out for Christmas.
It’s not even brown when I take it down! If I remember, I’ll take a picture and show you.
We set up two trees in our house: the kids tree and mommy’s tree. The kids use our old artificial tree, sort of a Charlie Brown tree (ok, really truly a Charlie Brown tree!), and decorate it with colored lights and their own ornaments. It lives in their toy room, and yes, things get broken ever year. They love having their own tree to decorate and turn on each day.
I show you their tree in the name of keeping it real. It’s such a scraggly tree, but it bring endless joy to my boys.
Then there’s mommy’s tree:
It is a family affair to decorate “mommy’s tree,” but the instructions are clear that mommy may move ornaments or veto decorations at any time. 🙂
I did move some ornaments, but kept the “house” that my oldest made on one of the interior branches. The branch is holding maybe 8 ball ornaments as close together as you could possibly hang them. Adorable.
I’ve had these ornaments for years. I’m very thrifty when it come to holiday decor, so these were all purchased a day or two after Christmas at 75% off. While I love all of the ornaments, I do like them to be not too precious. They might get broken with the little hands putting them on the tree or the dog’s wagging tail as he looks out the window. For those reasons, I want to love my tree but not put it up on an untouchable pedestal.
Not all of the ornaments are a matched set which makes it a little less perfect and all the more meaningful. This one is from my Bible study leader a few years back.
This one is just from Target years ago, but I love the white, gold, and glitter.
Another one from Target, I really like gold glittery ornaments! I just took pictures of my favorites, but ha, they all look the same!
Next up, the mantle! We have a corner fireplace in our living room, and it is a challenge to decorate. The shelf on top is huge. There is so much space to fill. Now I know with decorating that not all space needs to be filled, but this is an awkwardly large space that looks funny very easily.
I posted some of these photos on Instagram and Facebook recently and received some great suggestions on how to decorate a corner fireplace. Take a look at this one. It looks so much like my fireplace it’s scary! I wish I had done some research before decorating mine. I just get an idea in my head and start running with it. Next year, I will incorporate some of Kristi’s ideas.
The massive quote “O Come Let Us Adore Him” is my solution to shorten the depth of the mantle. I have a large canvas that I covered in white wrapping paper. Then I made a template in Photoshop and used that to draw the quote in pencil first on the paper. I went over the pencil with black permanent marker. Finally, I painted the star on with craft paint and called it a day! Easy to make, and easy to take off after Christmas!
My new stockings are looking smashing, if I do say so myself. One small issue though, they are kind of heavy. As in, those weights barely hold the empty stocking on the mantle. They will surely fall down when loaded with goodies. I didn’t really like the magnetized decals that go on top of these weighted hangers (I liked the low profile!), but I think we need to add them to make the hanger heavier.
The nativity is my favorite one so far (I own three…I might be starting a collection!). It is hand-carved from olive wood, and my in-laws brought them back for us from Jerusalem. It is so beautiful and meaningful to me.
I have another nativity that I was planning to put on the buffet in our dining room along with other pretty thing. Well, I did put it on the buffet, and the kids helped me put it up.
One wise man lost his hat and hand, and it looks like a sheep may have passed away. This is one area I don’t fix to be perfect. I like seeing how my kids put things up. It makes me chuckle every time I walk by.
As for the other pretty things that would make a lovely Christmas buffet-scape…well…I need to back up a bit and show you some real life. I wasn’t able to get our dining room all deck out because…WINE!
The red blanket is covering and keeping two carboys of wine (one shiraz, one pinot noir) warm while they ferment. The random stuff next to it is all the tools to make the wine: acidity tester, CO2 something-er-other, and I don’t know what else. This is real life. It can’t all be perfect. Sometimes you just need to make wine. 🙂 Come on over in 2 years to have a glass!
The last kid friendly area is how we display our friend’s and family’s Christmas cards and our advent wreath. I made a couple bows (following this tutorial), and we tape the Christmas cards we receive to the tail each day.
I made this felt advent wreath at Bloom, a mom of young children group at my church, and it is perfect for pointing my kids to Jesus. My kids put up a berry every day, and we “light” the candles on Sunday as we read the Bible passage that applies to each candle.
This is my first time doing an advent wreath. I did not grow up in a liturgical church so this was not a part of our church tradition. I really like it so far. Jesus is the reason we celebrate. Dan and I work hard to make sure our children know that.
The best part? It’s felt. It doesn’t break! Christmas win!
So there you have it, a not-too-perfect, mostly kid-friendly, real-life Christmas Home Tour! My goal is to have our home look Christmas-y but not halt real life. We play hard in this house all year, Christmas included.
Do you have a favorite Christmas piece? Mine is the nativities!
Do you decorate early, late, slow, all in one night, wait until Christmas Eve?
Do you recycle your holiday decor or buy new things each year?
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