Christmas is by far my favorite time of year.
I love everything about it: cold weather, music, cookies, family, cutting down a tree….
Even though December is a busy month, it’s such a peaceful time of year. It’s a season of rest & relaxation after the long, hot days of summer.
I usually enter the Christmas season with the best intentions when it comes to gifts & decorating. But by mid-December I have nothing to show for my Christmas spirit except for a bare tree & an amazing Pinterest board.
Well not this year, my friends….
This year, I already had my decorations up by December 1!
Now, all you advocates for the Thanksgiving holiday don’t fret, Turkey Day was celebrated sufficiently before I whipped out my tinsel. We spent time with our greatest blessing, our families, & ate turkey & fixings for a solid week….but I may have been playing the ‘N Sync Christmas album while I cooked. By the way, if you haven’t checked out their Merry Christmas video you should make that a priority in your life right now…..you’re welcome.
So, on to Christmas!
Let’s start with the curb appeal. I have always wanted to put lights on the outside of our house because I think it looks so whimsical & festive, so this year we made it happen! On the day of Creekfest, my husband & wonderful mother-in-law decided to go all out.
They decorated our roof & picket fence & she even lent us some cute trees to frame our entryway. After the party, we all gathered in the yard for the big reveal. Dustin was so proud of himself, we might have even done a little drum-roll. The lights were twinkly & beautiful….for the 5 seconds they stayed on!
It was a total Griswold’s moment. Perfectly punctuated by my mother-in-law belting the National Anthem.
Who knew you could only hook together a few strands at a time?!?
Once all of the kinks were worked out, they were exactly what I had hoped for.
Let’s move inside!
It’s a tradition for us to get an ornament every time we go somewhere special throughout the year, so we have collected quite a few over our marriage. Usually our tree, while sentimental, looks like a gift shop threw up all over it by the time it’s finished.
So this year I decided to keep in simple. Burlap & silver, can’t go wrong there. We still pulled out all of our ornaments & relived the memories attached to them. Creek was being so gentle….until he found a beautiful plaster egg ornament that I had purchased on a trip my husband surprised me with a few years ago. He pulled it out of the box, looked it over….& cracked it on the coffee table. When I asked him why in the world he did that when he was being so gentle with the other ornaments he said “Mimmie cracks eggs for breakfast”. Well yes son, yes she does.
Other than that little mishap, all of the ornaments made it through unwrapping safely.
Even the tinsel, which creek called his “indian hair” as he ran around the house rain dancing & making war cries, found its way onto the tree somehow.
You’ll notice that only one slipper decided to make its internet debut.
We did add some new ornaments to our tree this year. My brother surprised me with these cute little snowflakes that he made from twigs. They are now available in our Etsy shop!
We put Creek’s new train around the bottom of the tree, & since I didn’t have a tree skirt that I liked, I bunched up an old bed skirt to look like snowy mountains around his track.
We don’t have a real fireplace, so I hung our stockings on the living room curtain rod, along with a strand of pine garland. Dustin & I still use the stockings that we decorated the first Christmas that we started dating. Check out that fancy trout he has going there.
The rest of the Christmas touches consist of signs that we have collected over the years.
The snowflake sign is another one of my brother’s creations that is available in my Etsy shop.
He’s a crafty little somebody 🙂
Do you guys have any special Christmas decorating traditions??
Share in the comments section below!
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Annie @ Annie's Noms
Your house looks so magical! Just gorgeous and so festive! 🙂
Caitlin
Aww thank you! That’s because all of the mess was hidden outside of the camera frame 😉
Kristin Cook
Cute! And you did the right thing by listening to N*sync Christmas! Is there REALLY any other way? 😉
Caitlin
Amen to that!
carolyn
It looks wonderful!
I love the snowflake and sign… and the bedskirt around the bottom of the tree. Smart!
Carolyn
Perspective
Caitlin
Thanks, gotta improvise!