Holiday Home Tour Link-Up

You guys, it’s my very first link-up!!!!  I’m so excited!!  And boy, what a great subject for my first one! 

I’ve been working hard these last couple of weeks to get our halls decked, and this past week it was finally completed.  We go all out… we put up four Christmas trees and almost every room in our house has some kind of festive decoration in it.  I’ve always been Christmas crazy, so this isn’t anything new, but now that we have little ones, I’ve stepped up my game even more.  Christmas time has been my favorite time of year since I was a wee one, and my parents always made sure that everything was cozy and wonderful for us growing up… I have the absolute fondest memories of Christmases from my childhood. 

Well now it’s my turn to create that same cozy and wonderfully Christmasy environment for our littles, and I don’t take that responsibility lightly.  Grab a fuzzy blanket and a cup of hot chocolate, and settle in… you’re going to be here a while!

Welcome to our home!

The front door is flanked by two trees and a lighted garland.  This past year we also started stringing icicle lights across the front porch, but those didn’t make the home tour post last year.  B was kind enough to get them up early for me this year for photographing purposes so here they are!  ;o)  I took several photos as it was getting dark one evening so you can see the progression from daylight to almost nighttime.

When entering the front door, our formal dining room is on the right.  Last year, I didn’t decorate it (with the exception of our Christmas frames), so everything you see in here is new for 2016.  I loved having a room to decorate in silver and white and blue since the main part of our home is decorated in red and green and gold.  And that Merry and Bright marquee?  I die.  It might be one of my favorite things in the entire house!  Hobby Lobby for the win!

If you walk straight into the house from the front door, you are greeted by our lighted garland on the staircase, which leads into our living room.  This is where we spend most of our time, and this is where our main Christmas tree is.  We always have a live Frazier Fir in this room, and I get the absolute largest one that will fit in the space.  Our ceilings are nine feet high in this room, so our tree is 8 foot, 10-ish inches.  I just can’t help myself!  :o) 

And as much as I adore the themed catalog perfect decorations on a Christmas tree, our main tree will always be home to our hodgepodge of old keepsake ornaments.  All of Brian’s old childhood ornaments, all of my old childhood ornaments, and now all of our children’s ornaments are all piled onto this tree together, and there’s just something so special about that to me.  There are lots and lots of memories on this tree and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  My favorites?  The hand print ornaments that I made with the each of the kids when they were just tiny little babes for their first Christmases, and the snowflake ornament from our wedding.  And take note, you’ll see a whole lot more of those later!  

You may remember my seasonal book crate?  Well, it’s stocked full of Christmas goodness right now, and it sits right by the tree so the kids have Christmas books at their fingertips at all times.

We also keep a basket on the coffee table of all of our Christmas props – silly hats, funny glasses, Rudolph noses, and Christmas stickers… also all at the kids’ fingertips so they can be festive whenever they want!

Oh, and see that sweet little list next to that bowl of Christmas balls?  That’s one of Jacob’s many Christmas wish lists.  I was tidying up just before the photo shoot, and I just couldn’t bear to put that away.  I thought it would be perfect to leave out for the shoot because it’s a part of our everyday world.

The manger scene is one of my favorite things of all of our Christmas décor.  I purchased it the same year that B and I got married, and it is just gorgeous.  

Moving on into breakfast area and kitchen!  This year I decided to decorate our entire buffet table in the kitchen, and I dedicated that space to house all of our Christmas frames.  Each year I buy a festive Christmas frame and put a picture of our family (usually our Christmas card picture) from that Christmas in it.  We have a collection since 2003 when B and I started dating.  It’s kind of similar to our tacky souvenir collection for our travel gallery wall, but for Christmas.  :o)

I always do a new chalkboard for each holiday or season, and here is the one for this Christmas.  I think this is my favorite chalkboard that I have ever done. 

I used to hang our Christmas cards in the living room, but they were kind of out of the way so I feel like we really didn’t get to enjoy them, so this year I decided to hang them in the kitchen.  I made a new holder and everything!  Look for the tutorial soon!  And hey, Beth!!  You and one of our family members win the award for sending your cards out the earliest!  I was so glad, too, because I was afraid that I wouldn’t have any to show for the tour since I took my home tour pictures so early.  I can’t wait to see this thing fill up with all of our favorite people!

A few more touches/angles...

Even the bathroom has some little Christmas touches here and there… a couple of cute lil’ metal snowmen, a Christmas hand towel (not pictured), and a Christmas candle.  Boom!  

Moving on to the bedrooms upstairs…

Welcome to our master bedroom!  We put an artificial tree up in here each year, and it houses all of the leftover ornaments from our wedding.  You may remember that we gave out Christmas ornaments as wedding favors since we had a December Wedding?  Well, we had tons of them leftover after the wedding and I couldn’t bear to get rid of them, so I saved the whole box and they now fill the tree in our bedroom.  How fitting, right?  There are four different snowflake designs, and each one is strung with ribbon that we had personalized with our names and our wedding date.  It’s a perfect reminder of our big day back in 2007.

Onto Jacob’s bedroom!  We just redecorated his entire room back in July this year, so his color scheme changed.  Last year we did a blue and green tree to match his room, but this year we dropped the green and added red (per his request) to match his new red, white and blue room.  We love it!

Olivia’s tree is exactly the same as last year so it may look familiar to you if you’re a long time reader.  I’m still in love with this one, so it will likely remain the same for a few more years.  Those white flowers just make it.

Well you guys, that’s it!  What did you think?

If you want to see what our home looks like on a regular day, links are below to each room of the house, and I also posted the link from our holiday home tour last year.

Front Sitting Room 

Formal Dining Room 

Living Room 

Kitchen 

Guest Bath

Playroom

Master Bedroom

Jacob's Baby Nursery
Jacob's Big Boy Bedroom

Olivia's Room

Kids' Bathroom

My Home Office

Outdoor Living Space

Christmas Home Tour 2015

And don’t forget to grab our button and link-up below… we can’t wait to see your lovely homes!

*Linking up with Our Pretty Little Girls for Tuesday Talk.

An InLinkz Link-up