My 2014 Christmas Home Tour

It has been such a whirlwind of a month and we are only half way through it!  Carving out time to decorate my home this year was challenging to say the least, and to be honest there were times when I questioned whether or not to actually even put up a tree.  I was feeling a bit Scrooge-ish with my hubby being out of the country and my parents having recently moved out of state, but my kiddos were depending on me to create their winter wonderland.

I am so glad that they were there pushing me along.  Decorating was cathartic and really helped me start to feel the Christmas spirit.  While it has taken me over a decade, I have collected decorations that I love and make me happy and I so enjoyed seeing all of them as I set them out.

I invite you to come take a peek through my home and hope that you enjoy my Christmas Home Tour.

When you enter the foyer you’ll immediately see my “new” antique sideboard.  I just purchased it earlier this month and have big plans to refinish it soon.  I am loving the greek key details and the size is perfect!  In the meantime, I decided to go ahead and move that bad boy right in and decorate it.  I wrapped a ribbon around my lampshade and added a store bought bow, added homemade ornaments from the kids to a little Christmas tree (fun fact: this tiny tree served as our Christmas tree last year while we celebrated in Virginia while my husband was there for four months for work) and added my favorite Christmas photo of my kids to a gingerbread frame on a cake stand.  Some peppermint candies fill out my tray holding a large hurricane lamp from Pottery Barn.

Moving in to the living room, the deer head takes center stage.  I mounted it onto my mirror above the fireplace and created a cute little banner to go around it using my Silhouette.  The sled was a clearance find from TJ Maxx at the end of the season last year that I darn near squealed for joy when I found.  I stacked two different faux garlands on top of each other to add depth and added a red lantern to either side of the mirror.

And how about that ridiculously cute deer?  I also found him at TJ Maxx recently.  There was only one in the store and I had just started shopping, but you better believe that I threw that thing under my arm and walked around the entire store with it.  I was not going to miss out on him!

My tree is completely different from what I normally do, but I am in LOVE with it!  I ended up using silver, red and green and swooshing the colors around the tree.  Yep, that is the technical term…swooshing.  This was a bit more daunting than I had originally anticipated, but if you use a couple of ornaments to mark your “swoosh” before you fill in, you will have a much easier time.

The shelves on either side of the fireplace were also changed up to feel the festive spirit.  I added my DIY canvas from last year and a pair of wood ice skates (my hubby proposed to me while we were ice skating on a pond at home…he melted a hole in the ice with his knee) to one.  The others have a noel sign, Santa and some silver trees with candles.

My favorite shelves though are on the other side…I’ve got my nutcracker from my recent trip to Europe as well as a hand painted ornament from my absolute favorite town in Germany.  Looking at these shelves just fills me with happy memories!

Growing up, my mom found this amazing checkers board that she passed down to me a couple of years ago.  I played so many games on this board and it is such fun to see my kids playing on it as well.  My parents also found this adorable train advent calendar for me at my favorite holiday shop in Estes Park, CO.  It is the perfect size to hold chocolate kisses for the kids in each drawer.

Here is a sneak peak of a bookshelf that I recently refinished.  Keep a look out for more about it (and those books!) in January.  In the meantime, I threw my village on top and added a few kick knacks through out.

Those little books in the basket?  I’ve got two full baskets of books.  My kids adore Christmas books, so we pull them out and leave them within easy reach every year.  A large portion of them are from my own childhood.

And I am always blown away by the difference that a pillow can make.  I added some holiday cheer to my couches and chairs with some fun pillows.

And here are just a couple more shots to give you a closer look…

There you have it, my 2014 Christmas Home Tour.  I hope that you enjoyed it and won’t hold the massive amount of photos against me!  😉  What are the decorations that hold special meaning to you in your home?  I’d love to hear about them!