Christmas Around the House!

Our halls are decked for our first Christmas in our new home! Let’s start with my favorite part of our house — our staircase garland! As I mentioned on Instagram, this project was truly a labor of love that was worth every hour (about 13 total), 3 trips to Trader Joes, 2 craft store runs and one fight with my husband. But like I said — worth it. Matt and I are so in love with the garland and he gets equal credit for staying up till midnight (twice) holding garland for me in just the right spots (no wait, a little to the left, nooooo I said LEFT, no sorry, I meant right. Now up tiny bit. More. More. More! Perfect.) while I tied one million twigs together.

We decorated about 20 feet of banister using 4 fresh white pine garlands, 5 bunches of mixed eucalyptus, 4 bunches of silver dollar eucalyptus and 24 yards of ribbon. All of the greenery was purchased at Trader Joes.

Once the garland was finally finished I stood back to admire our work with tears streaming down my face. I was just so overwhelmed with gratitude for our home. We’ve worked so ridiculously hard this year to make it our own and I truly feel so blessed that it is ours.  I still can’t believe it when I pull into the driveway at times. It’s been such a dream come true for us.

I had always dreamed of having a fireplace one day in our home. And now we have one! If I’m home, you can bet we have a fire going.

We did have a few sad moments while unpacking the Christmas boxes. There were several reminders of Charlie. His stocking took my breath away when I unexpectedly stumbled upon it as I was flipping through the stack. And then came the ornaments. Every year my mom has a family ornament made for us and Charlie has always been included. We miss him dearly and Caroline still asks when he’s going to come back because she misses him so much.

Every year I frame our Christmas card and it has brought me SO much joy to see them add up over the years. I absolutely loving walking past this table in our house.

Previous Christmas Cards 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 coming soon!

This year Matt, Thomas and I decided to get a live flocked tree! You know who was adamantly opposed to it? Caroline. After a strong “But I don’t want snow on my Christmas tree!” meltdown we compromised and let her pick out a mini tree without snow for the play room. Everyone was happy.

 Ta-da! 100% decorated by Thomas & Caroline. But mostly Caroline.

 Handmade gingerbread man…also by Caroline.

And now for our tree!

Gosh I love this tree so much. It is so unlike me to not top this tree off with a massive bow. However, when I saw this Moravian Star Tree Topper I knew we had to have it. Matt is from Winston-Salem so I knew he’d love it so much.

Tree Collar Basket // Moravian Star Tree Topper

Previous Christmas Trees: 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011