Christmas 2015 Decor Tour

[[BLOGGER FAIL! I had this set to publish on Christmas Eve, but somehow it didn't.... ugh. So I'm sharing it now that I've discovered that it didn't publish. Ugh.]]


MERRY CHRISTMAS! It is CHRISTMAS EVE! Who's excited? Raise your hands! Who wants it to be less than 70 degrees outside?! My hand is up. Way way up. This warm weather Christmas thing is for the birds. We are spending this day with Aaron's family and I'm so excited!


This years Christmas is sort of conflicting for us. We are still very heartbroken at the loss of our pregnancy and we spent all of November trying to heal. The hurt will never go away, but we decided to make the very best out of the bad situation. And that includes going ALL OUT for Christmas!

If you didn't see what our house looked like last year at Christmas, click HERE to check it out. You'll notice that things look A LOT different this year. Again, all that is part of the healing process for us.


This year, with a fresh look to our house, we decided to simplify things. After all, this is "The Simple Life." I think people have a habit of complicating things, ourselves included, and Christmas is no exception. The bigger the better is a lot of peoples motto. Going ALL OUT for us did not mean Griswolding the house (but it does mean LOTS of Christmas Vacation!!) or buying more Christmas trees to put up in our house when we barely have space for the one we've got. (But I'll admit, I do want a small tree in our bedroom. Really really badly!) It meant, for us, making our home warm and inviting and a place where we feel safe and secure and where we feel love.

I expressed to Aaron that I wanted an old fashioned COUNTRY Christmas, and he was more than on board. Before most of the decor in our home I'd collected frugally over the years from Dollar General or Family Dollar. Shop what you can afford. I do everything on a sliver of a budget so we can have space for other things... like bills, food, vacations, etc. I was ready to stop having to put things together out of crap, and wanted some nice pieces that would stand the test of time.


On Saturday November the 21st, he and I braved the nasty, yucky, rainy weather to take a trip to town to stock up on our new Christmas decorations!

I love this shot of us. (It was one of the last shots before I decided I was tired of being a blonde.) Also, eyebrows of fleek. :) It was miserable and rainy and gross, but we were determined to have a good time together. That included stopping at our favorite hole in the wall restaurant where I had the best sandwich of my life.

Once our bellies were full, off to Michael's we went. I knew they were having a sale on their christmas lights, and we needed them, so that's where we went. Plus it's right next door to Kohls and we needed to go there too. By the end of the year last year all our lights on our tree were kaput. And this year we wanted to do a mix of white and colored lights on the tree, so new ones were in order.

Once we got there, Aaron saw that everything in their "Cozy Lodge" collection was 50% off. We went a little nuts. Originally we'd planned on expanding our Christmas Village (we only have once piece) but we decided our money would be better spent on the bigger things this year, and maybe add to the village during the after Christmas sales.

He was so stinking cute pushing that little cart stuffed full of goodies, I just couldn't pass up this opportunity to take a picture.

While we were standing in Michael's looking at all the Christmas things and listening to the Christmas music, we caved and decided that, even though never do it this early, we would decorate for Christmas when we got home. What?! Honestly, I'm glad we went ahead and did it. With all the eating that we did during Thanksgiving, I wouldn't have felt like putting it up on Black Friday anyway.



Are you ready?

Here we go!


Let me start you in the kitchen. I'm a chronic re-decorator. I am always tweaking things once I get them put out and live with them for a bit. And this year was no exception. I have these nifty new open shelves in my kitchen and they're so much fun to decorate.

I started with this.

And after talking with my best friend about coffee-bar's I decided I wanted to move my microwave and make this space a coffee bar. And then I started redecorating the shelves.

I love this look so much better. My red and aqua dishes are a hybrid creation of red and white santa plates from Dollar General 6 years ago, and then I painted silver serving platters from the Dollar Tree that aqua color and duct taped them together. I got the look I wanted with no money spent!


This year our tree is super gorgeous.

Here is a view in the day light. You can see just how light everything is in our house now.

 And here we are lit up at night.

Here is a closer look at the ribbon on the tree.

It's a burlap ribbon with some lace running down the center. I fell in love with it when I saw it because the angel on top of our tree was handmade by my Mom when I was little and she's wearing the prettiest tiered lace dress... I had to have it. I bought it at Michael's for $10. Here's a tip: whenever you see ribbon you like, buy it. Ribbon goes so fast that if you wait and come back a day later, it'll probably be gone. I bought them out of this ribbon and am so glad I did!

We are pretty sentimental when it comes to our ornaments, and here are some of our favorites. The big snowflake (and his 9 brothers) were hanging on the Christmas Trees we had inside of the church on our wedding day. It was so gorgeous. The Peace circle is actually just stuffed muslin and hand stitched by my Mom. We made some that said "HOPE" and "LOVE" too. The little stocking was part of a set we made together when I was a little little girl. We did red and green felt and turned them into stockings and stars and bells and birds and sheep and angels... they've held up so well. And then the sheet music ornaments we made after I met Aaron. We just copied Christmas Carol sheet music out of our church songbooks and shrunk them down, then we cut them out with some decorative sheers, swiped them with a little glitter and hung them with red or green cord. We love them.


Our wreath in the living room was another huge deal from Michaels.

First off, it's huge.  It was originally $92, but we got it on sale for $32. I love it!

 Our living room, night and day. From opposite corners.

This year we decided to buy a small tree to go in our bedroom. We've had a tough year and we wanted to treat ourselves, so we purchased a $30 pre-lit cheapie from Dollar General and gave it some love.

I decided that instead of ornaments on this tree that I wanted to do something different and so I dug out an old photo album and took the pictures from inside and basically just stuck them into the tree. Next year it will most likely have better photos on it, but I was just going with what I had on hand. And I love how it looks! It's so sweet looking back at these pictures which were taken way way before we got married. I love it!

I love the shot in the center. It was taken at my cousins wedding, not too long before we got engaged. I was so blonde and we were so skinny lol! Young love! <3

This is the last shot of my tree before the presents underneath start disappearing.

We are loving how cozy our little honeymoon cottage is this year. I've been baking bread and cookies and burning candles and singing Christmas carols.... in the air conditioning. This weather in insane. Seriously.


Give thanks for all you've been blessed with
And hold your loved ones tight. 

Merry Christmas!



ALSO -- Santa is bringing me a new laptop for Christmas, so blogging and photo editing will be much easier to do. So in the New Year there's LOTS of blogging ahead!