Holiday Home Tour

Today I'm taking part in the 2009 Holiday Home Tour hosted by the lovely Tracey of Notes from a Cottage Industry. Please be sure to visit Tracey as she has posted links to many other bloggers who are sharing their Christmas decor! Thank you, Tracey!!

(click any photos to enlarge)

We took advantage of our daughters being home for Thanksgiving to trim the tree. It's definitely more fun when everybody is here to decorate... We bit the bullet a few years ago and bought an artificial tree (I'm not sure either girl has quite gotten over this yet, but when the last 'real' tree we had dropped every needle the day after Christmas, which meant we were still vacuuming up remnants of it the following summer, we decided it was time to go artificial.)


I wasn't able to download all of my photos, so I'm just going to share a bit of the living room for now... In future posts I'll show you the fireplace & mantel, the vintage birdcage all decked out for the holidays, the dining room, and much, much more.


Our living room is quite small so every year, in order to make room for the tree, the furniture has to be rearranged.


The tree definitely takes up quite a bit of the room, but it's well worth it - especially at night when the room is illuminated by just the tree lights...


In a future post I'll share the sentiment behind this year's window decorations.


I'll also show you more of my "Night Before Christmas" collection (I never get tired of looking at the beautiful illustrations in these books... The artwork is amazing, with each individual artist depicting this Christmas classic in a style that is unique to them)...

I often take advantage of after-Christmas sales to pick up heavily discounted bottlebrush trees in all styles and sizes. I've used them in several of my groupings around the house this year...

...including on the pie safe, where I plunked them down on top of my small collection of button vases. The glitter reindeer are from Target last year - can you ever have too much sparkle at Christmastime? I don't think so!

Now I'm off to finish downloading more Christmas photos! Thank you for stopping by to see the first of my holiday decorating posts! I wish you all a joyous holiday season...

Donna

Welcome to my Holiday Home Tour!

(click on any photos to enlarge them)


Thank you, Tracey (Notes from a Cottage Industry), for hosting this Virtual Holiday Home Tour! As you probably already know, Tracey's blog is filled with beautiful photographs, inspiring quotations, project how-to's, gorgeous home decor, amazing transformations, as well as a list of all bloggers participating in today's "Holiday Home Tours." So grab a cup of hot chocolate, get comfy, and have fun visiting everybody's homes!

(Our family had planned to decorate this past weekend but Spotty, our 15 year old kitty who often makes appearances on my blog, has been quite sick so we didn't decorate; therefore, I'll share pictures from last Christmas with you.)


I'm a total product of the 50's, as are these angels and reindeer. (I have a thing for vintage Christmas decorations.) Behind them is my mother's crystal candy dish, filled with small glass ornaments.


Last year we bought our first artificial tree, and it's amazing how realistic it is. Fake trees have come a long way since the 70's.


Another photo of last year's tree. A lot of the decorations are ornaments made by the girls during their nursery school, kindergarten, and elementary school years (in many ways it seems like yesterday!) There are also lots of photo ornaments of our family, pets, and loved ones mixed in with the store bought decorations.


"The stockings were hung by the chimney with care..." Even though I now have two pink stockings on the fireplace, we still hang the girls old teddy bear stockings on Christmas Eve for Santa to fill!


I got this cute silver feather tree from Lori at Katie's Rose Cottage last year. She always has the neatest things in her shop!

My good friend, Jill, gave me this adorable sheep a few years ago. Don't you think it has the sweetest little face?

This is the dining room last year. Every year I try to do something a bit different for table coverings, but the centerpieces never vary.

Small button-filled vases sport little sparkly boughs...

The Christmas cactus in bloom last year.

The CD chest and mirror at the end of the hallway decked out with garland and a pink Christmas tree.

And finally, a little arrangement of trees and vintage feather angels. (Can you tell I love to use pink, white, and silver for Christmas?)

Thank you so much for stopping by during the Holiday Home Tour. I hope you enjoyed yourself, and I know you will enjoy visiting all the other participating bloggers! Have fun making the rounds!

Note: (Instructions for the glitter "Christmas card ornaments" in the first photo can be found here if you are interested.)

Donna