BoC: Christmas Tour Part V

A favorite place for me to seasonally decorate is the shelf in our dinning room that we use to hold our extra appliances. I just threw some of the extra decorations I had together. I also brought the Christmas cactus up from the basement as it had buds on it. Now I am betting that the blooms will open while we are out of town. Maybe a few will be left when we get home. In the end I decided to add the hanging arrangement above. The basket is holding all of the Christmas letters that we receive.

BoC: Christmas Tour Part IV

Since M and I hardly ever eat at the table, I thought I would go ahead and decorate it as well. Not too much, but just enough. My mom made the table runner as a Christmas gift last year and I was so excited to see it when I got it out of the Christmas decorations.

The bowl is from M's grandma's house. It was something that I choose when we were cleaning out the house after she went to heaven. The faux-antique ornaments were a super steal. I got them last February in a little store when I was visiting family. They were marked down over 75 percent. I grabbed up all that they had. Another exciting thing to get out of the Christmas decorations.

The antique eggnog cups were a gift from my mom last year for Christmas. We even use them to enjoy our eggnog.

BoC: Christmas Tour Part III

M comes from a real tree family and I come from an artificial tree family. Our first Christmas together we bought a real tree only to find out that we weren't supposed to have them in our apartment. (We didn't get caught, but we did remove it piece by piece in many garbage bags. This process ended up with a clogged vacuum and a backed up kitchen drain. But we will always have the memories.)

The next two years in our apartment we used an artificial tree that we purchased at a second hand store. It was somewhat of a Charlie Brown tree and we donated it back to the store when we moved this summer. So that meant that this year we would have to get a new tree. Now the debate was on again, real or artificial? We ended up picking up a real tree at Menards of all places.

This year I am going to keep my eyes open for a decent artificial tree at the after Christmas sales for the future. So we will see what next year brings.

We have no shortage of ornaments around here. M's grandma made the grandkids a new ornament every year and my mom would (and still does) make or buy a new ornament for us every year. It is so much fun decorating the tree every year and thinking back on the Christmases past. So, our tree may not look like it has a theme, but it has a theme of love.

(You can't see it very well in the picture, but our topper is a shabby chic white wooden star. I love it!!)

BoC: Christmas Tour Part II

One of the fun things with a new house is figuring out how you want to decorate it for the seasons. We don't have many shelves or places to put extra decorations in our house. When I got out the Christmas decorations I knew I wanted to have a few extra pieces out, but where to put them? I decided the ledge that overlooks the foyer would work out nicely. I really like how the lights tend to spotlight each individual item. I don't really think that the picture does it justice. (The lights are from our wedding. I had bought them on clearance the Christmas before we got married. We will never be short of Christmas lights.)

BoC: Christmas Tour Part I

While we are off celebrating Christmas with our families, I thought I would share what Christmas looks like around here. I hope you enjoy!

I currently don't have a picture of the outside of our house. I will see if I can conquer the snow and do that. For now, when you first enter you will see our nativity scene on our coat hook mirror.

And since we don't have a chimney, our stockings are hung by the stairs with care. My mom has made many of these stockings, each different. We even have a set that is still at their house. I am thinking I will try to add some greenery up there next year.