Christmas Home Tour!

Hello all and welcome! If you are coming over from Donna’s tour, hello! And if you haven’t been to it yet, be sure to check it out. So much inspiration!

OH my goodness. I gotta say, this wore. me. out. When I decided to do this Christmas blog tour I was all, how fun, I’ll share my holiday decor! And then yesterday I was all, CRAP, I have to clean my whole house!

But is wonderful to have all of our Christmas decor up and done! I took a load of pics, so bear with me people. Here’s the thing – every year I get rid of more holiday decor (don’t cry for me, there’s a ton to start with) because I just don’t wait to store it all anymore. This year I’ll get rid of a bit more, but overall we have good storage for it all now so I’m not as focused on getting rid of much. I have created a new rule of one item in, one out though.

The older I get the less I want to pack up half of my house to decorate for Christmas. I don’t mind a little bit, but years ago it was like we were moving back in in January, I had to put so much back where it belonged. So, my point is, I try to use what we have an add Christmas touches to it. It’s not always in your face Christmas, but it’s fun and festive and we love it.

I’m not going to talk too much, so if you half any questions let me know and I’ll answer them in the comments. We’ll start with the kiddo’s spaces:

I had to dress up the book nook a little. :)

 

Every year the Bub and I set out his Christmas village. Some of it is Goodwill finds from years ago and the rest we have picked out – one a year. It’s his absolute favorite thing to set up at Christmas:

The cats regularly walk through the town knocking down trees and people, it’s just general havoc. :) We turn it on at night and the Bub falls asleep to the lights. It’s lovely.

The powder room got a redo this year so I had to add a few holiday touches:

   

My only holiday decor purchase this year was an expensive one. Yowza. I’ve wanted the Willow Tree nativity for years and I finally bit the bullet.

It is so pretty:

Up till now we’ve only had the Little People nativity so this is a step up. :) I hope to add to it a bit every year.

I leave most of my accessories as is and just add to them. Greenery ALWAYS does the trick:

I just used pieces of Frasier Fir cut off our tree – just ask for scraps and they’ll give them to you! Keep them spritzed with water or just leave them – as long as you don’t touch them you won’t know the difference.

One of my favorite (and easiest!) additions this year is an idea I got from Ann Marie’s Instagram feed. I changed it up a bit to work for the frames above the sofa:

I’ve had the frames up for two months without anything in them – I have a plan but I’ve obviously found more important things to do. ;) I think I’ll keep these print outs and put them up again next year! I think it’s so stinking cute.

I’ll share more about our trees next week (more on that later), but here is our BEAST:

That’s nearly 12 feet of awesome right there. We have a total of four trees in the house and this is the largest by far (by about five feet).

I didn’t do too much to the dining room -- we still have our old kitchen table in there so I put together a simple centerpiece: 

Then I added some sprigs of greenery on half of the shelves:

And just a few touches of Christmas using ornaments:

And lights:

I had lights from IKEA (they’re years old, not sure if they still have them) that are teeny tiny and don’t burn hot, so I stuck them down in my vintage jar. It’s SO pretty, especially at night.

The kitchen got a few bits of Christmas:

There’s my glittery reindeer, so pretty.

  

Dang it gets dark so early! I was running out of light. 

I got some simple white dot vinyl from my friend Shelley and went a little crazy with an idea she had:

It “snowed” on our chalk board and I LOVE it. How fun is that? I have one more thing to add to that wall that I will show you soon. :)

I shared our Christmas mantel here: 

And how I make my Christmas pillows on the cheap here:

I went minimal with the rest of the family room:

I used my Ball jars (yeaaaah Ball State!) on the stairs and filled them with fake snow and a few small ornaments:

That fake snow is another staple this time of year!

Of course my favorite time during the holidays is the night time. This is my view as I type:

This isn’t all of the decor and I still have a couple more projects I hope to accomplish, but this is most of it! As you can tell by the 200 pictures. :) I hope you enjoyed it and were inspired! NOW I can sit back and relax!

Next today head on over to Holly at Storywood Designs to see her beautiful home! Check out the others too -- I’ll update the rest of the tours as they go live:

Monday
Just a Girl
Nesting Place
Hi, Sugarplum
Tatertots and Jello

Tuesday
Life in Grace
A Thoughtful Place
Funky Junk Interiors

Wednesday
Thrifty Decor Chick
Storywood Designs
Decorchick
Southern Hospitality
Our Fifth House

Thursday
Sand and Sisal
A Place for Us
Songbird
Pretty Handy Girl 
Beneath My Heart
All Things Thrifty

Friday

I Heart Organizing
My Blessed Life
Emily A. Clark
Not Just a Housewife
Remodaholic