Deck the Halls

The Christmas season officially started for us as soon as we picked out our tree in Blowing Rock.We listened to our Christmas playlist on the ipod during the entire five-hour drive back to Atlanta, and the tree went up as soon as we got home. I love decorating the house for Christmas so we got right to it. While the tree branches were settling, we managed to get everything else up and ready that night.

Here is a peak into our home, all decorated for Christmas!

A few years ago I made a wreath for our front door (inspired by Katherine's DIY post here), and it still looks just as good. This year we added some garland around the doorway that we picked up along with our tree.

I picked up a few bows and hung the leftover garland on our entertainment center.

Our stockings are hung by the.... non-fire. (Side note: That is because our couch is directly in front of our fireplace. Our rental house is setup rather awkwardly and our furniture was too big to put anywhere else. Oh well.)

We hung the mistletoe in the most convenient spot ;)

We like to have the house smelling really wonderful, so in addition to the real frasier fir tree scent, we brought out my homemade potpourri and light up my favorite Christmas candle every night.

         

My newest addition for this year is a nativity scene. I've been looking for one for a while and couldn't find one that was just right until this year. Hopefully over the next few years I can pick up a few more pieces to add on to it. My mom has an old stable for me back at home that I'm going to pick up next week, so until next year our little figurines are stable-less. They don't seem to mind.

After the rest of the house is decorated and the tree branches have settled, we move on to the tree, which is my most favorite part of all the Christmas decorations. I inherited my dad's condition of needing the largest tree that can fit in the house, so it takes quite some time to decorate it - and we have it down to a science now. First we put on all the lights and the star at the top. Then we put on all of our new ornaments for that year. We collect travel ornaments and this year we had quite a few new ones (but sadly I cannot find our New Orleans ornament ANY where, so we might have to go back...)

Augusta National - April

San Francisco - June

Washington DC - August

London - September

We also get a dated ornament each year from the Waterford crystal snowflake collection. I just love them, they are so sparkly.

I of course got an ornament for Molly...Christmas came early for me this year! This was an easy DIY ornament kit - here is the link to the exact same kit I used, but I got it for about half the price on sale at Michael's.

Next I put up all the keepsake ornaments that my mom has given me every year since I can remember. I love her tradition and it gave me a really great starter collection once I moved out on my own. This is the ornament she picked out for me this year. So cute!

After we have all the "real" ornaments on the tree, we put on all the "filler" ornaments - the classic glass ball ornaments. This year I was also inspired to make a few ornaments that I found on pinterest - a button ornament (here) and glitter ornaments without the mess (here). I only made one button ornament since it was a little more time consuming and my finger started to hurt from the pushpins. The glitter ornaments however were extremely easy and fast to make, so I made two whole boxes of them in a variety of colors/ribbons. They make great "filler" ornaments.

After a good sweep of the floor, I put on the tree skirt that we got the year we were married.

And then.... voila! Our beautiful Christmas tree. It's our favorite one yet.