Tour of our Christmas kitchen!

Heya! I hope you had a wonderful weekend! We were BUSY. Tis the season, eh? :)

My friend the Nester is hosting a holiday home tour, and I thought I’d share our festive kitchen and link up!

Warning: LOTS and lots of pictures!

A couple of years ago, I decided to make our kitchen FUN for the holidays. Like, lots of candy cane stripes, red and white, a little bit of whimsy, FUN.

Last year I made some super easy wreaths using dollar store forms and ribbon (that I bought half off the year before at Target). I hang them on the backs of the kitchen chairs:

 

I love how simple they are, but the candy cane stripe adds a little punch. :)

I kept it simple on the table by just adding some sparkle:

Who doesn’t love a little glitter in their salt and pepper? ;)

I usually surround our back door with garland and lights, but I’m not even kidding you – the lights on almost every. single. strand I’ve pulled out of the bins were burnt out. (I had to replace ALL of them on our outdoor garland.)

They were burnt out on the kitchen greenery too, and I was DONE with that. :) So I went with our simple wreath on the back door:

It’s just a cheapy wreath with red ornaments stuffed in, and a dollar store ornament hanging from the middle.

I hot glued the ribbon over the hanger too. Pretty cute, eh?

I told you about the score that is my kitchen tree last year – I think it was around $80 originally, and I got it for about $15 after the holidays at Michael’s. It came lighted, with the urn, and it is all sparkly and pretty – LOVE it:

I’ve put a bunch of white and red ornaments on it, including my absolute favorite – the little red glass birds from Target a few years ago:

I haven’t seen them there again – which bums me out because they are just the most darling little things ever!

Our Ikea sofa table is decked out as well – it’s the perfect spot for my Santa hats:

And various fun stuff from year’s past(WHY must stores keep tempting me with cauuute stuff?) at the end of the table:

A candy-themed snow globe train, an adorable gingerbread house that sings and lights up (be still my heart) from Hallmark, and the carafe and plate we use for Santa’s goodies.

I don’t have much on the counters – just a couple Goodwill cookie jars:

And another Santa carafe holds candy canes for my nightly hot chocolate:

A friend and I found those adorable carafes at Flower Factory years ago, and we each grabbed up a few extras. I just adore them. Cause Santa does rock.

My giant Goodwill cloche on the island is filled with my standard greenery, ornaments and beady stuff:

For those of you wondering, I take the cloche off, fill it up while upside down, then place the base over it and turn it right side up. :)

Last year I put gobs of greenery, lights and sparkly stuff up above our cabs, but this year I felt like I had plenty going on without them. So I just piled a few big ornaments here and there, and hung a couple from platters:

Originally, I had planned to place a very simple garland over our kitchen window and call it done – but then I pulled up the Christmas bins and it was kind of like Christmas when I opened them up – wink wink.

Every year, I forget about all the fun decor we have. Isn’t that so fun to rediscover everything?

I started with a little vintagey looking tree I found at a consignment shop last year:

Can I tell you how much I LOVE Santa boots? Love.

I ordered these blocks from my friend Amanda last year:

Oh my – they are so adorable!

I found these itty bitty Santa boots at Kirkland’s a year or two ago – and I fill them with red hots (one of my favorites!):

They are sooo small and insanely cute!

Since I still haven’t put any window treatments up on my nekked windows, I thought the window could still use a little somethin’ to dress it up for the season.

Instead of the garland I had planned, (which I have enough of around here anyway!), I saw a simple idea in a magazine a couple months ago and decided to give it a try.

I used a tension rod we already had and hot glued some red ribbon around it first. Because I’m freaky like that. :) I hung some candy cane ornaments from it with ribbon:

Those ornaments were $4 (on sale) at Hobby Lobby by the way – and you get a bunch of them!

I think it’s pretty darn sweet:

I think my absolute favorite spot in our Christmas kitchen is the Goodwill shelves I found earlier this year – I had so much fun playing around with this little vignette!:

It was all stuff we had, and I LOVE having this little space to decorate in the kitchen! It makes me HAPPY.  :)

So here’s our Christmasy kitchen:

 

Can you find our Elf on the Shelf in this picture?:

He forgets to move every couple of nights. ;)

Whew! Well, that’s the tour of our Christmas kitchen! Some of you have been following along as I’ve been working on the redo of this room – it’s definitely getting there. And I LOVE how it’s turning out!

The before and after pics aren’t the exact same shot, but you can see the difference a new sink and backsplash have made in the room:

OK, a few other changes too. :) And the after shot was taken at night – now that’s impressive! You can see more of the changes I’ve made in the kitchen by going here.

Oh yeah…there’s 530 fantastic trees linked up! Wooeee!

P.S. Kelly is hosting a linky too – you can go here to check it out!

 

Thank you to my sponsor!: