Christmas Home Tour

Ever since I was a little girl, the day after Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite days of the year.  To most, it’s Black Friday, but we never really participated much in the Black Friday craze in my family.  Instead, we always used the day to spend more time together by decorating the house for Christmas.   

I always loved climbing up in the attic with my mom, pulling down all of the Christmas boxes, and decorating the house while listening to our favorite Christmas albums.  Every year, it was always so exciting opening each box and pulling out our keepsakes from Christmases past.  And every single year, I was always delighted at seeing something from years past that I had totally forgotten about.  It was always like taking a trip down memory lane. 

Now that I’m a mother, it’s my job to create traditions for my babies, and this is one that I know they will enjoy for years to come.   

Christmas is my very favorite holiday and my favorite time of year, so we go all out.  We put up four trees, decorate the entire ground floor, and we put up lights on the front porch, so it takes a couple of weeks to get everything up.  Since it takes so long, this year I started decorating a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving.  I put up the trees in the master bedroom and the kids’ bedrooms plus all of the other decorations before Thanksgiving, and then the day after Thanksgiving we got our tree and decorated it.   

The kids had the very best time helping decorate, and as they get older I hope they continue to enjoy it.  

So, our halls are officially decked, and I’m thrilled to share our little piece of Christmas Wonderland with you.  Here we go! 

Front Porch 

Welcome to our sweet home!   

We don’t cover the whole house in lights, but we do a lighted garland around the front door and hang wreaths on all of the windows outside.  And Uga gets to wear a Santa hat!

Entry 

I love the way this looks when you walk in the front door.  The lighted garland on the staircase is my favorite.  It’s so welcoming and cozy.

Living Room 

My favorite room in the whole house during Christmas time, and the room that we use the most. 

The kids have a ton of Christmas books so I rounded them all up and put them in this crate so they are always at their fingertips.

They also have a lot of Christmas props (glasses, headbands, stickers, etc.) so I spray painted this wire basket gold to hold all of them, and I put it on the coffee table so they can play dress-up whenever they want.

Kitchen 

I love poinsettias and I love these place settings in our eat-kitchen.

   

Oh hey, Cheek (our elf)!

Dining Room 

Every year since Brian and I have been together, I have bought a Christmas frame and put a picture of us in it from that Christmas.  This will be our thirteenth Christmas together, so the frame collection is getting a little out of control… there were a couple of years where I thought about discontinuing this tradition just because of the amount of space it takes to store them and display them, but I just can’t seem to let it go.  I always love looking back at our pictures through the years!

Master Bedroom 

You may remember that Brian and I just celebrated our anniversary last week.  Our wedding was on December 1, 2007, and since it was during the Christmas season, we gave away personalized ornaments as favors.  I purchased a bunch of snowflake ornaments, had some ribbon personalized with our names and our wedding date, and I strung the ribbon through the ornaments as the hangers.  We had a bunch leftover after the wedding, so I always decorate the tree in our room with all of the leftover ornaments.  I adore this tree because it reminds me of all of the wonderful memories from our favorite day.

Jacob’s Bedroom 

I typically love traditional colors for Christmas, but since I already use red, green, and gold for our main tree downstairs, I decided to decorate Jacob’s and Olivia’s trees in non-traditional colors just to mix it up.  Jacob’s room is green and blue (even though it needs a makeover since he’s outgrown the baby nursery), so we put up a green, blue, and white tree complete with snowflakes on the top.

Olivia’s Bedroom 

I love this girl’s bedroom so much, and I was so thrilled to be able to do a girly tree this year!  It is beautiful!

I hope you enjoyed our little slice of Christmas heaven… I know I sure do!

*Linking up with Momfessionals for Show and Tell Tuesday, The Newly for Bits of Cheer, and Katie Elizabeth for Countdown to Christmas