It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Christmas time is such a nostalgic time of the year that brings back so much memories from childhood and most of all, it takes us back into history when the Son of God came down to earth to bring us salvation. That is the reason there is so much joy this time of year. Our homes should absolutely reflect this festivity. Welcome in!
If I could use one word to describe our home this Christmas time, it would be cheerful. And that is exactly the goal! I want our boys to have joyful Christmas memories and we are really enjoying creating these family traditions that help cultivate joy in our home. Last year, we were in a season of life where we didn’t want to bother with a Christmas tree. It felt very wholesome to focus on the true meaning of Christmas, so we took out our nativity scene and ended our decorating with that! If you’d like to see Inna’s 2024 Christmas Home Tour, you can find that here. This year, we had more bandwidth to really decorate the Christmas tree, wreath, and mantle on top of our favorite nativity scene.
We took a family trip to a local Christmas tree farm and picked up a tree. There was a cool train ride for $5 a person, which we all thoroughly enjoyed. There was an option to saw down a tree yourself at the farm, but we just chose a ready tree.
It was so fun to decorate the tree with my older son, while my husband was occupying my younger son. They were hanging the lights in the boys’ room. We turned on Christmas hymns and hummed along as we decorated. It was a learning curve for Samuel, but once he got the fact down that we want the ornaments to be spread evenly across the tree, he was actually quite helpful!
Ornaments
My favorite color scheme for Christmas is gold and red, so all of the ornaments were either neutral colors or had hints of red or burgundy. Hobby Lobby had an exceptional selection of ornaments all 50% off, so I picked out some new ornaments this year. The white pinecones, champagne snowflakes, ribboned ornaments, and birdies were all from there. Even though I love glass ornaments and other beautiful vintage ornaments, I do not own any yet. I am not willing to add to the holiday stress by having my boys crack ornaments and cut their fingers. Therefore, all of our ornaments are plastic and non-breakable. They are helping me rearrange the Christmas tree daily, so I will not be investing in nicer ornaments until they are older. These are some more close-up shots of other ornaments that I acquired from previous years.
Mantle
Before hanging the lights around the Christmas tree, I trimmed off a few sprigs off the branches. Some branches looked too bushy, so we made room for the ornaments. I used these trimmings to decorate other spaces in the house. First, I made the wreath that is hanging on the front door with some vintage bells I picked up at Marshalls. Second, I used more to add a Christmas-y touch to our mantle.
The sleigh and skiis were thrifted by Inna and she gave them to me a few years ago and I’ve been enjoying decorating with them in the wintertime. I also made some beeswax candles and displayed a few up on the mantle.
And that’s a wrap! Thank you for following along for my Christmas home tour this year. Be sure to also check out Inna’s home tour coming up soon!
[…] you missed it, be sure to check out Irene’s Christmas home tour this year! If you are interested in how I decorated for Christmas last year, you can also check it […]