Touring Around Our Christmas Home 2020

I started decorating for Christmas really early this year. Like, way early for me. I’m usually a day after Thanksgiving kind of gal. I pulled everything out of the attic on November 1st with full intentions to begin decorating, but then it just sat there in tubs for days. I was torn. I didn’t want the pumpkins to go away, but this year has been such a doozy & I was craving a little bit of that Christmas magic.

So! I told myself that I could have both and I started to decorate. I tried mixing pumpkins and Christmas trees, and to no avail it just wasn’t working. What DID work though was leaving room for pumpkins and fall on my kitchen table (for Thanksgiving dinner), and then I felt like that allowed me to decorate for Christmas everywhere else in my home.

In the midst of all of that, I decided to decorate one area of our home each day leading up to Thanksgiving as a way to slowly usher it in. I was able to take my time and I decided to bring you guys along on Instagram! I saved everything to a highlight bubble on my page. And now here we are a few days before December, and everything is decorated. That’s such a good feeling! 

Let’s start with the front porch

The goal when decorating my front porch is to try and use a lot of what I already have. The doormats, some of the planters and the two taller Christmas trees are not new, but I was able link them for you here! The two taller trees are faux from Home Depot, and then I added in some some smaller, real trees to create different heights & dimensions. 

The real star here though is the garland around the door frame! This is a new addition for us this year, and I LOVE it. I was able to find very affordable garland (like $5 from Target) and spruce it up with stems from Hobby Lobby. I saved the tutorial on how I did this to a highlight bubble on my instagram called “c’mas tour”.

The banister

Our staircase is one of the first things you see when you walk into our home, so I like to dress it up real nice whenever I get the chance. Last year we did real garland here, but the clean up was INSANE. Seriously, I was picking pine needles out of our carpet for MONTHS. Never again.

So this year I opted for this faux garland, and I really love how this turned out. I wanted something that was full & had variety, but I also didn’t want to pay an arm and a leg for it. When I saw this debut with the Studio McGee Christmas line at Target, I snagged it real quick. I added these large bells to the front, and then topped it off with this soft ribbon at the point of each swoop.

The mantle

The mantle! Oh how I love decorating mantles. I kept it pretty simple this year by adding this faux pine garland. I was sure to double it up to make it look much fuller, and then I added some twinkle lights and bells. I finished it off with the stockings on these antler hangers, and there you have it!

The Coffee Table

I usually do some sort of Christmas tree branch arrangement on our coffee table from the branches we cut off the bottom of our real tree. Pro-tip: Lowe’s & Home Depot keeps all of the branches from the cuts they make for people, and they’re available for anyone to grab! So even if you don’t do a real tree, you can stop by & grab these for free! They are usually in a bin in the garden center. I then added this wooden pedestal, seasonal candle, stack of books, and wooden beads to create height & dimension. 

The Built-ins

I’m a sucker for a good built-in moment. I can’t hide it. If it’s good enough you may even hear me squeal and that’s exactly what I did here. I didn’t plan on going monochromatic, but everything just started coming together like this and I fell in love.

This sweet nativity scene made by Willow Tree is very special to me and something that I’ll add on to each year. Can we talk about the Christmas village!? I’ve always wanted a little village, and this built-in is the perfect spot! The buildings and trees are from Hobby Lobby.

The office tree

I love a good styled tree! Taylor was adamant about keeping our main tree the “family tree” with all of our homemade, collected ornaments from over the years. I knew I wanted a styled tree somewhere in our home though, so what better place than in my office. I found this beautiful Scandinavian style tree last year on Wayfair. I love that it has tree bark & is super roomy to display all of the ornaments. Most of these ornaments are from Kirklands, and collected from some of my favorite boutiques. I’ve linked similar items! 

The Family Tree

Last but not least! Our family tree. We always do a real tree and decorate it with the sweetest ornaments that we’ve inherited and collected while being married, and even before. My favorite ones are from our travels together as a couple. Anytime we travel somewhere new together, we’re sure to grab an ornament as a keepsake for our tree. We always love hanging these ornaments each year, because it reminds us of the places we’ve been together and the memories we’ve made over the years. Picture taken before we decorated it with our favorite ornaments.

Merry Christmas!