Christmas Home 2018

Merry Christmas and welcome to our holiday home! I have shared our Christmas decorated home for many years on this blog and while I love sharing it each year, I also share it so I can remember what I did when I am decorating the next year. More so than any other year, Christmas snuck up on me this year and being out of town the weekend before Christmas didn’t help my plans of getting this posted before the big day. I did however get a live tour posted on Instagram. If you missed it, I saved it to my highlights under “Christmas Home“.

I love blogging and sharing on this space I have created over the years but I’m not sure what will come of it in the new year. I don’t know if people even read blogs anymore or is it all on Instagram? I feel like I put pressure on myself to maintain it and I question if it’s worth it, but I love being able to look back on our lives and I think that may always be a reason for me to keep coming back.

Without further ado, welcome to our Christmas home! I made a few changes since switching to buffalo plaid decor in 2017 but the biggest changes are due to the fact that we now have a mini -playroom in our living room. We don’t have a ton of space in our home but I feel like we make it work the best we can.

Disclaimer: most of my stuff is really old. I tried sharing where a lot of things are from in my Instastories but there are very few pieces that are new or still in stock. If you have any questions where something is from, I’ll be happy to share, if possible.

One big difference this year was I used real garland in our dining room and it made such an impact! I’ve used real tree clippings in the past but I love the look of the long garland around my china cabinet and the big, framed picture in our dining room. I picked up the garland from Lowes and it was really inexpensive. I think I paid about $15 for a 20 ft piece and it was enough to cover both pieces.

A sweet lady at Lowe’s gave us a tip to help the garland last all season. It was raining the day we bought the garland and she said to leave it outside, still bundled, in the rain that night. After letting it dry a little, then put it out and spritz it with water every few days. This trick worked for us and even though it’s dry, the garland is still green even 2 days after Christmas.

Other than adding a few new wooden signs, I kept my china cabinet the same. Since painting it a few years ago, this is one of my favorite pieces at Christmas because the red pops so well against the white.

I made the wooden sign on top of the china cabinet. I found the blank sign at Walmart and cut the “Joy to the World” vinyl with my Silhouette.

While I have big dreams of one day decorating a finished kitchen (crown molding and backsplash), that hasn’t happened yet, so I keep it pretty simple in the kitchen. I did share some ideas I have for the kitchen once it is finished over on my Instastories, though!

The hand towels and the rug are both from Hobby Lobby this season.

As we head into the living room, I can’t help but share a peek at our tree. It’s the focal point of the whole room but I will share the details on down the post.

The mini-playroom is the newest addition to our living room since last Christmas. We had to have a way to organize Baker’s toys and this has been the best solution. It normally lives on the wall where the toy kitchen is but we had to make room for the tree so they were swapped for the holidays.

For whatever reason, Baker HATES that I have decorations on top of her kitchen. Most days, I find the chalkboard and bottle brush trees somewhere else in the living room.

Maybe I’ll get our own family picture in the picture frame soon. 😂 I’m a firm believer of adding garland and lights to anything and everything that doesn’t move (heck, I’d even add it to something if it did move)! It just makes it so festive!

Before we had kids and even after Baker was born, Cory swore that we wouldn’t have toys in the living room. He said that “toys belonged in the bedroom.” Looking at this picture just makes me giggle because he was the one who first suggested that Baker was too young to play in her room by herself and we needed this. One day (and probably too soon), she won’t want to be in the living room with us so we’re enjoying it while we can even if it doesn’t go with the “decor.”

One of my favorite views! There is just something so magical about Christmas lights!

Since Baker is in to everything now, I knew it was time to trade out my glass nativity set for one that was more kid-friendly. She loves playing with it and we used it all season to tell Baker the story of Jesus’s birth. One day, I’ll be able to get out my nice set again but for now I’m cherishing these years where little hands are around. Can you tell that I am already dreading this getting older business??

There’s just not much that is sweeter than a two year old telling you that Christmas is Jesus’s birthday! Makes my mama heart proud.

I’ve been known to switch up my decorations from year to year and while in the process of decorating, I move pieces a ton before deciding on the perfect spot. This “Merry Christmas” sign lived on top of my China cabinet for a few years but I like it on the mantel even more!

I started following Erin from Cottonstem on Instagram this Christmas season and oh my, talk about decor envy! One thing she does is uses multiple trees and creates a “Christmas tree forest.” While I couldn’t do a full-on forest of 4-6 ft trees this year, it gave me an idea to use more trees in my decor. To me, the beauty is to just give more lights and not necessarily to decorate them. Her Instagram is where I pulled the inspiration to flock my cheap tree from college and use it on my fireplace.

I shared how I decorate my mantel on Instastories but unfortunately there isn’t much technique to it. It’s more of just shoving everything in until I find something I like. It’s my opinion that more is better when it come to decorating garland, especially fake garland.

I found my stockings at Kirkland’s last year, as well as the buffalo plaid garland and I feel like changing my stockings made a big difference on the look of my decorations. I also really like that Kirkland’s won’t break the bank, especially if you can catch them on sale. I refuse to spend more than about $10 a piece on stockings.

Every year, I say that my mantel is my favorite but this year, I really do believe this is my favorite ever! I really like the white and flocked pieces I added in and hope to add even more next year. I also say every year I plan on switching my garland but always end up liking the way it turns out.

In the past, I have always done a Clemson tree in this corner but the flocked tree on my fireplace was the tree I used for it. Plus, I had other ideas for this cabinet.

A lot of these pieces are on my mantel for the rest of the year and I like that I had almost a second mantel to decorate. This year, I found this little flocked tree at Target, the candlesticks and garland at Hobby Lobby, and the buffalo plaid sign at Kirkland’s last year.

The “S” and the bottle brush trees are both from Hobby Lobby but the “S” is old.

My pillows and blanket are all both from previous seasons but the pillows are from Kirkland’s and the blanket is from Hobby Lobby.

Oh, Christmas tree! I have a love/hate relationship with my Christmas tree. This is the 3rd year we’ve had this tree and we battled lights going out on it all season. Now, it wasn’t the most expensive tree to begin with but when you pay a couple hundred dollars for one, I would expect it to last more than 2 years without issues. Of course, it was after we got it decorated when we started losing whole sections of lights so once we take it down, we’ll try to get the lights figured out. To get us through, we just wrapped strands around the sections that were out.

But when it’s all lit up, I do love looking at it. There was a brief few moments (like maybe 30 seconds) we said, “forget it, we’ll just get a new one” but then we realized how incredibly wasteful and lazy that was when we can possibly fix it with a few hours’ work.

I made my bow topper with ribbon that I found from Big Lots last year and my ornaments are a hodge podge of different stores. Over the years, I’ve found some at Hobby Lobby, Pier 1, Kirklands, Target, and Big Lots.

I picked up a few new ornaments this year, like the fur “S” at Target and the black glitter balls at Hobby Lobby. I also added more buffalo plaid ribbon that I found on my ribbon shelf. #score

The bathroom is also simple with just a few winter touches like the soap container and a hand towel. These were both gifts from a sweet friend at work!

And that wraps up our Christmas home tour! I didn’t share pictures of Baker’s room because it is decorated exactly like last year. We don’t really decorate the back of the house though. I would love to have our room decorated for Christmas but honestly, it’s not even decorated normally. There are very few things on the wall, there are normally clothes all over the place, and I need new curtains. #keepingitreal I did put on some Christmas thermal sheets this year from Target and we’ll call that festive. Maybe next year, I will add a few decorations to spruce our room up!

I hope you enjoyed our Christmas home just as much as we have! It’s always fun sharing a little glimpse into one of our favorite things- Christmas decorations. Now the real question, are you the take the decorations down on Christmas day type person or leave them up till after new year? I can guarantee ours will be up till at least New Years!