2016 Christmas Home Tour
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… we have been looking forward to this time of year ever since we moved into this house. Moving is always a mixed bag of emotions. There is excitement and anticipation, but also the feeling of being unsettled until the new house feels like home. We loved our last house and spent the better part of three years making it our own. When we moved, as much as we loved the new house and all of the potential it has, it took a long time for it to feel like the home we created in our first. We kept saying that by Christmas, it will feel like ours. Something about decorating for Christmas makes a space feel like your own… so we’ve been waiting for this season to come. And I have to say, our predictions were right. We have fallen in love all over again with this house this season; fallen in love with our new home.
Can I take you on a mini-tour? We’ve done some decorating and in the spirit of Christmas being right around the corner, let me show you some of the festivities that have been going on in our neck of the woods!
When you first walk in the door (I’ll show you what’s been happening outside on the front porch some other time… that’s a story for another post), this is the scene that greets you. Remember that steal of a hall table from this post? It has single-handedly changed the look and feel of our foyer from stark and barren to cheery and welcoming. Plus, it’s the perfect spot for all the seasonal decor my little heart desires. 🙂
This year, we broke out the semi-DIY white Christmas village (you can find that how-to here), added some live fir garland, a few sparkly ornaments, and a string of battery-operated Christmas lights and called it good. Oh, and that banner across the mirror? Just a few bucks at the Target dollar section… you need one of these. So cute and easy!
Moving into the family room, this is where most of this year’s decorations are living.
The mirror, I adorned with a pink, orange, and gold bunting, and a strand of faux greenery. Most of the pillows on the couch are ones that hang out there all the time… I like that the colors are a playful nod to the “pink theme” we’ve adopted for Christmas this year.
There are a few new, seasonal ones too, though! See those stitched snowflake ones? They are from Target and I found them brand-new for super cheap at our local Goodwill. Our Goodwill consistently has tags-still-on-it Target overstock and it’s a real problem for my monthly spending budget. But on the flip side, a lot of times I’m able to score goodies like these cuties and not feel as much buyer’s guilt as I might if I fell in love and bought them at full price in Target… at least that’s how I justify it to myself. 🙂
I love the delicate stitching and the simple snowflake pattern… it makes it so we can keep them out past Christmas!
Onto the tree, which has been given the “Eloise” treatment. Ever seen that movie with the adorable and spunky, blonde-haired six year old? This year, we channeled her energy to think PINK in honor of our newest family member. You can see a full tree run-down in this post.
Moving right along, if we spin around and look toward the kitchen, you can see the newest addition to the holiday line up. I LOVE getting Christmas cards in the mail, but we’ve never done much in the way of displaying them. On a whim, I grabbed some scotch tape and stuck all of ours up on the basement door, surrounding the felted green wreath (made last year). This is our view, coming in from the garage… which is usually the entrance we use so it’s fun to have some Christmas cheer greeting us right from get go.
Turns out, we love it! It is so fun to be able to enjoy the cards all season long, instead of opening them, reading them once, and then having them sit in a pile until they eventually get thrown out. This might be a new tradition because that door makes us smile every time we look at it.
On the shelves behind the couch, I kept it simple and classic… some more of that garland (it came from Produce Junction… 25 feet for $5.50!), a few ceramic white houses (again, dollar bins at Target) with tea lights inside, two bronze hurricanes with white candles, and a glass bowl full of pine cones and sparkly Christmas ornaments.
Oh, and that green candle is one of those that you’re supposed to burn all Christmas day, starting right when you wake up in the morning… we’ve never done it before, but it’ll be fun to add it to our Christmas day this year.
Our kitchen table looks very similar to how it looked on Thanksgiving, mainly because I didn’t have the energy to start from scratch and when something can pull double duty, you LET IT.
I did swap out the leaves and houses that used to be the centerpiece for three cake stands stacked on top of each other, topped with some holiday goodies. These are just things I had in our Christmas decorations box… 3D snowflakes and a collection of sparkly fruit (you can see how I made and used them in this post). Oh, and a few ornaments to fill each of the bowls. 🙂
There is not much going on in the kitchen, but I do love this little accordion sign (Target dollar bin) that sings of holiday cheer… it makes me smile. 🙂
In the reading room, we got a little tree-crazy… Mitch’s parents recently bought a new tree and gifted us with their previous fake one. How fun to have two trees! This one was set up later in the season and didn’t get as much attention as our family room tree, but it will be fun to see where this guy ends up in future years. I could see it sparkling away in the dining room or maybe someday if we finish the basement, we could add some Christmas spirit down there… the possibilities! For now, it’s cozy-ing up our front room with a few lights and red and green ornaments.
Our bathroom is the last room that got hit with the Christmas cheer wand. A few faux festive blooms on the counter and a votive candle that can hang out well into the winter season…
The shelves got some love too!
Remember those glass containers from Southern Glen back in the fall? A bit of Buffalo snow and some mini bottle brush trees make a perfect wintry terrarium…
The other, I filled with a slew of mini, colorful ornaments (remember them from the mishap in last week’s ornament project?) and it is the perfect thing to make it feel festive in there!
Ok, it’s time to bring this Christmas tour to a close… but not before one last stop. For a mini-Christmas update in our room, we popped our tiny Christmas tree on the bench under the window and it casts the perfect glow in the room when all of the other lights are turned off. It also happens to be a dreamy place to rock a certain newborn back to sleep after late-night feedings… at least, that’s the story we’ve crafted in our minds. 🙂
And there you have it! Our 2016 Christmas Home Tour! We hope you have a wonderful Christmas with your family and that you get plenty of time to enjoy good company, good food, lots of laughs, and the joy of the birth of our Savior. Merry Christmas, everyone!
