I’ve been
working hard these last couple of weeks to get our halls decked, and this past
week it was finally completed. We go all
out… we put up four Christmas trees and almost every room in our house has some
kind of festive decoration in it. I’ve
always been Christmas crazy, so this isn’t anything new, but now that we have little
ones, I’ve stepped up my game even more.
Christmas time has been my favorite time of year since I was a wee one,
and my parents always made sure that everything was cozy and wonderful for us
growing up… I have the absolute fondest memories of Christmases from my
childhood.
Well now it’s
my turn to create that same cozy and wonderfully Christmasy environment for our
littles, and I don’t take that responsibility lightly. Grab a fuzzy blanket and a cup of hot
chocolate, and settle in… you’re going to be here a while!
Welcome to
our home!
The front
door is flanked by two trees and a lighted garland. This past year we also started stringing
icicle lights across the front porch, but those didn’t make the home tour post
last year. B was kind enough to get them
up early for me this year for photographing purposes so here they are! ;o) I
took several photos as it was getting dark one evening so you can see the
progression from daylight to almost nighttime.
When entering
the front door, our formal dining room is on the right. Last year, I didn’t decorate it (with the
exception of our Christmas frames), so everything you see in here is new for
2016. I loved having a room to decorate in
silver and white and blue since the main part of our home is decorated in red
and green and gold. And that Merry and
Bright marquee? I die. It might be one of my favorite things in the
entire house! Hobby Lobby for the win!
If you walk
straight into the house from the front door, you are greeted by our lighted garland
on the staircase, which leads into our living room. This is where we spend most of our time, and
this is where our main Christmas tree is.
We always have a live Frazier Fir in this room, and I get the absolute largest
one that will fit in the space. Our ceilings
are nine feet high in this room, so our tree is 8 foot, 10-ish inches. I just can’t help myself! :o)
And as much
as I adore the themed catalog perfect decorations on a Christmas tree, our main
tree will always be home to our hodgepodge of old keepsake ornaments. All of Brian’s old childhood ornaments, all
of my old childhood ornaments, and now all of our children’s ornaments are all
piled onto this tree together, and there’s just something so special about that
to me. There are lots and lots of memories
on this tree and I wouldn’t have it any other way. My favorites?
The hand print ornaments that I made with the each of the kids when they
were just tiny little babes for their first Christmases, and the snowflake
ornament from our wedding. And take
note, you’ll see a whole lot more of those later!
You may
remember my seasonal book crate? Well,
it’s stocked full of Christmas goodness right now, and it sits right by the
tree so the kids have Christmas books at their fingertips at all times.
We also keep
a basket on the coffee table of all of our Christmas props – silly hats, funny
glasses, Rudolph noses, and Christmas stickers… also all at the kids’
fingertips so they can be festive whenever they want!
Oh, and see
that sweet little list next to that bowl of Christmas balls? That’s one of Jacob’s many Christmas wish lists. I was tidying up just before the photo shoot,
and I just couldn’t bear to put that away.
I thought it would be perfect to leave out for the shoot because it’s a
part of our everyday world.
The manger
scene is one of my favorite things of all of our Christmas décor. I purchased it the same year that B and I got
married, and it is just gorgeous.
Moving on
into breakfast area and kitchen! This
year I decided to decorate our entire buffet table in the kitchen, and I
dedicated that space to house all of our Christmas frames. Each year I buy a festive Christmas frame and
put a picture of our family (usually our Christmas card picture) from that
Christmas in it. We have a collection
since 2003 when B and I started dating.
It’s kind of similar to our tacky souvenir collection for our travel gallery wall, but for
Christmas. :o)
I always do a
new chalkboard for each holiday or season, and here is the one for this Christmas. I think this is my favorite chalkboard that I
have ever done.
I used to
hang our Christmas cards in the living room, but they were kind of out of the
way so I feel like we really didn’t get to enjoy them, so this year I decided
to hang them in the kitchen. I made a new
holder and everything! Look for the
tutorial soon! And hey, Beth!! You and one of our family members win the
award for sending your cards out the earliest!
I was so glad, too, because I was afraid that I wouldn’t have any to
show for the tour since I took my home tour pictures so early. I can’t wait to see this thing fill up with all
of our favorite people!
A few more touches/angles...
Even the
bathroom has some little Christmas touches here and there… a couple of cute lil’
metal snowmen, a Christmas hand towel (not pictured), and a Christmas candle. Boom!
Moving on to
the bedrooms upstairs…
Welcome to
our master bedroom! We put an artificial
tree up in here each year, and it houses all of the leftover ornaments from our
wedding. You may remember that we gave
out Christmas ornaments as wedding favors since we had a December Wedding? Well, we had tons of them leftover after the
wedding and I couldn’t bear to get rid of them, so I saved the whole box and
they now fill the tree in our bedroom.
How fitting, right? There are
four different snowflake designs, and each one is strung with ribbon that we
had personalized with our names and our wedding date. It’s a perfect reminder of our big day back
in 2007.
Onto Jacob’s
bedroom! We just redecorated his entire
room back in July this year, so his color scheme changed. Last year we did a blue and green tree to
match his room, but this year we dropped the green and added red (per his
request) to match his new red, white and blue room. We love it!
Olivia’s tree
is exactly the same as last year so it may look familiar to you if you’re a
long time reader. I’m still in love with
this one, so it will likely remain the same for a few more years. Those white flowers just make it.
Well you
guys, that’s it! What did you think?
If you want
to see what our home looks like on a regular day, links are below to each room
of the house, and I also posted the link from our holiday home tour last year.
And don’t
forget to grab our button and link-up below… we can’t wait to see your lovely homes!
