Who else out there loves to decorate and make their house all festive during different times of the year? I am definitely one of those people and always have been! Even in college, I would put up a few fun seasonal decorations in my dorm room because it made me happy. My biggest seasons I decorate for are Autumn (I typically put this stuff out in September and take it down when I put Christmas stuff up) and Christmas, although I have decorations that I change out during other times of the year, too. (Side note: I just realized I never posted a home tour like I intended to when we moved into this house two years ago. I'll work on that after the first of the year!)
Over the years, I've collected a lot of Christmas decor. I did lose an entire bin of stuff when we moved (and by "lose" I mean the bin fell out of the truck and everything in it broke into pieces), but I still have plenty. Some of it is meaningful and some of it are just things I picked up at the store, but I love how it all comes together when I put it out! Without any further jabber, here is a tour of some of our Christmas decor!
My gallery wall in the living room gets changed out with festive pieces!
In our main living areas, I change out every shelf or surface with Christmas decor!
This is part of the wreath that I made for our front door.
One of my very favorite pieces . . . I brought this back from Ukraine when I was 20 years old. He's beautiful! Sitting next to him is a polar bear ornament that was a gift from my late Grandma.
My mom made the snowman quilted wall hanging.
I also redecorate our entire fireplace area 💓!
I purchased this Let It Snow sign last year from a local antique store. It's not an antique, but it is hand crafted by a local artist. The tree you can see in the pic is a felt tree with velcro ornaments. The twins love decorating and redecorating it!
I even change out all the decor above my kitchen cabinets. This is where I put our Santa pictures we have taken each year. The candy cane in the pic below was made by my Gramsie (my late great grandmother) out of plastic canvas.
The decorations I have with the photos are things I've had for years, and many of them were gifts. In the photo below, there is a white Santa sitting next to the framed photo. He belonged to my Granny, and I received him when she moved out of her house and downsized.
In the last few years, I've also started redecorating our main bathroom during Christmastime.
This countdown snowman was a gift from a friend about 15 years ago. The kids love playing with the numbers, and consequently he never has an accurate count :-).
In each of the kids' bedrooms, we put up a small tree and just a few other little decor items. Their trees each have some special ornaments on them, in addition to some mini ornaments we just picked up at the store.
Most of Bren's decorations are new this year. He didn't have much, so I bought a few pieces (the sleigh, sign, and Santa) to put on his shelf.
Brianna's tree is the only one with colored lights.
I also bought her a few new things this year.
But the pieces in the photo below we've had since she was a baby!
Brecklyn and Brooke's tree was a hand-me-down from our cousin. It's perfect for them!
These little guys were a gift from their Meme.
Their other little decorations bring a perfect amount of sparkle to their room.
Upstairs, we put up a smallish tree with all of our Hallmark ornaments on it. This window faces the front of the house, so you can see this tree lit up in the window when you drive by our house at night.
We started earlier than we normally do with decorating the house this year. The tree upstairs we actually put up on my birthday, and most of the other decorations went up the day before Thanksgiving. Chris even put our outside lights and decorations out that day! Our plan was to put our big tree up on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, but the children graciously shared the stomach bug with both Chris and me so there was no way the tree was going up that day. Instead, we put it up the following Friday (November 30). I love having my Christmas decor out . . . it's so cozy and inviting . . . but I don't like to have it out for too long. I'm not super strict about waiting until after Thanksgiving, but I also don't want Christmas stuff out in October!
Daddy always takes the job of getting on the ladder to decorate the top of the tree.
The little girls were SO fun this year . . . they couldn't help enough!
Brooke, Brecklyn
Brenson
My whole crew of decorators!
Brenson really wanted to help Daddy put ornaments up high!
Daddy helping Brecklyn hang her ornament.
Daddy helping Brooke
Brianna didn't want to be left out, so she asked Daddy to pick her up, too!
About half-way through our tree decorating, we fixed hot chocolate to drink. See? I was there, too!
Momma and Brooke
I'm not sure if the twins were more excited about decorating the tree or drinking hot chocolate. They were living their best life this night, haha!
In interest of keeping it real, I feel like I need to add that the pictures aren't telling the whole story about this night. I think we made a mistake when we decided to do this activity on a Friday night after dinner. We didn't even get started until after 7:00pm, and everyone was tired from a long week. The kids were pretty cranky throughout the process, and honestly the adults weren't much better. In my head, I wanted everything to be magical with Christmas music softly playing and lots of smiles and laughter, but that's not how things were. There was bickering and broken ornaments and children who weren't listening and whining and spilled hot chocolate. BUT, there was also laughter and love and singing and excitement. Sometimes, I have to remind myself that real life is rarely like what you see in movies or on TV. Real life is often messy and imperfect, but we need to embrace it anyway.
I know my children may remember some of the messiness and imperfections about our life, but I also know that they'll remember our time spent together. That's something I would never trade, even for perfection 💓.
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