O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

How lovely are your branches… especially now that I’ve bedazzled them. 🙂

Ok, woah- let’s back up. Last you saw us, we were headed home from our Thanksgiving adventure (see the full recap here) to two states and three families. Our final day of adventuring found us chopping down this year’s Christmas tree!

It took us a couple of days once we got it home and all set up to get to the decorating part. It’s crazy to me how busy this time of year gets, but we really wanted to get our tree up and decorated as soon as possible. As busy as the holiday season is, it seems to go by so quickly and last year it felt like we had just barely gotten everything up when it came time to take it all down again. SO, the goal this year is to be finished decorating by the end of this week so that we can enjoy it all for a full season. And what better way to start than with the tree?! Last year, we did colorful lights and whichever ornaments we could find…

Note the #throwback to our yellow family room with red curtains… we’ve come so far. 🙂

This year, we wanted to do something a bit more focused. The goal was to stay in the blues, whites, and silvers family- think Winter Wonderland. We started with plain white lights and then added some silver and blue glass ornaments.

I was really excited about the white ornaments I found this year- first, these “furry” soft ones that almost look like they’re covered in feathers. I found them at my favorite local thrift store and snatched them up as soon as I saw them. I love the texture they add!

Speaking of texture, these white ones help to bring in some cool geometric lines to balance the softness of the furry ones.

I noticed them while flipping through the Lowes Ideas magazine and fell in love with the angular, ceramic look. Sooooo I took a trip out to Lowes to see if I could track a few down- the nice thing about these is that they have such presence on the tree that we didn’t really need a lot of them. We have four and it feels like the perfect amount for our little five-footer.

After the basics, we got a little crazy. I mean, if you call snowy owls, woven balls, silver pine cones, and snowflakes crazy, that is. Just a few here and there for added interest. Even though the woven balls didn’t really fit the “shimmery” theme, they bring a nice earthy feel to the tree and balance out all of the sparkle. 🙂

Our star for the top is the same one we used last year- a silvery gold number from the Kmart Christmas Clearance a couple years back. Still works just fine!

To top it all off (this was my favorite part and I couldn’t wait to place it), we went the “snowy” route with the tree skirt this year. I’ve seen some people use these and have always liked the look, so I grabbed two faux sheepskins from Ikea and they cover the tree stand perfectly.

I knew I liked the look, but I didn’t think I’d LOVE it as much as I do. It’s very winter meets cozy meets let’s-cuddle-up-in-our-log-cabin-next-to-the-fireplace. This might be a fan favorite… and by fans, I mean us. 🙂

So that’s the tree this year! All that’s left to do is set up the Nativity scene (still working on tracking down a certain baby Jesus to match the partial set we already have) at the base and that corner of the house will be all set for the holidays! Only a dozen more corners to go… Happy beginning of December!

PS. Check back in tomorrow (here’s the link if you’re looking for it!) for an easy way to bring some Winter Wonderland into your home… seriously, it took me 15 seconds. Max.