Christmas at our House: 2010

A couple of weeks ago there was a holiday home tour extravaganza taking place in the blogosphere, but I'm just now getting around to it. But, I'm still sneaking it in before Christmas.

Ok...our front porch has two potted Christmas trees with lights, the Pottery Barn knock-off wreath I made last year, and two peppermint "plants" that I picked up in Canton. Just as with my pumpkin planters this fall, I am loving not watering plants outside right now in those pots.



Just inside the foyer of our home, sits our Christmas tree. This is really the only place that we can put our tree but I love it here. You can see it from outside all lit up at night and it's out of our way in the family room. But it can be seen from almost all of our downstairs common rooms. Right now it's decorated in a red and white peppermint theme that I've used for the past three years. I just love the red and white right now.



Growing up, we always had a tree with sentimental and special ornaments and I love looking at my mom's tree with all those memories on there. So, I have been collecting my own milestone and sentimental ornaments since Casey and I got married. In a couple of years, I think I will switch to this kind of tree and just use my "filler" ornaments from my peppermint tree to finish it off. I have ornaments from our first year of marriage, our first home, Ethan's first Christmas, some vacations, etc. This year I got one for Logan's first Christmas and the ones below for both of the boys. I got the snowman one from Calliope Designs (it says, "brothers are the best") and the round ones from Freckles on Etsy.

When I saw these Santa cones on Thrifty Decor Chic, I immediately wanted to make them and it turns out that they perfectly filled a spot on top of our TV cabinet that was blank. They were a bargain to make, super easy, and pretty cute. This year, since Ethan started preschool, he's been bringing home all sorts of holiday crafts, so I created a place to display them on the closet door in our family room. I also put up some Christmas photos I took of the boys this year. The reindeer antlers are made from Ethan's hands last year when he was only 18 months old....my mom made some for the boys this year too. So sweet to see how little their hands are/were.




My mantle this year just has this red-ball garland on it and that's all. I wanted to find some clear glass candle holders to go on either side of my hanging canvas, but I never did find the right thing. I didn't want to buy something that I didn't love just to fill the space so I'll keep looking for next year. In fact, it might be something that I decide to use year-round and switch out the candles per season. We'll see. We also have our stockings hanging, of course. Casey's and mine are from Pottery Barn and were given to us by my mom at my bridal shower before we got married. The boys' stockings are from Pottery Barn Kids.



For some reason, I really, really love these green trees. They are a departure from all the red and white decorations and they are so pretty and sparkly. The sign that you can sort of see just to the right of the trees is a glittery "Merry Christmas." And the frame is one I painted this year to hold the boys' picture with Santa. Neither of them cried this year...in fact, Ethan loved Santa and talked to him with no problem. After Christmas I place the Santa picture in a book so we can flip through each year. I am doing this for our Christmas cards too. Down the road, I think it will be fun to look back at all those photos and our cards.



In my kitchen I have the little elf and the pot of peppermints. Then, there's the Gingerbread Santa that my mom has leant me from her Santa collection. I love him. And finally, I made the gumball and peppermint trees this year. They did not turn out as perfectly as I had envisioned in my head...I didn't take into account that candy is not completely uniform in size. I still like them, though.



For the Christmas cards we received this year, I stuck them in the ironwork just above our kitchen table. Ethan loves looking at all the cards and I love having them all on display to enjoy. I used to keep them in a basket on the kitchen counter, but I like them this way much better. The only problem is that I'm running out of room and we're still getting a couple of cards each day in the mail! That photo below was taken several days ago so it's pretty full now.



Our two nativity sets do not have a permanent home....but that's because they are played with on a daily basis. We use them just for fun, but also to talk about and act out the story of baby Jesus, which Ethan can pretty much tell on his own now.