Few Festive Decorations

I enjoy decorating our home for Christmas and - at the risk of sounding like my mother - it seems a shame that not many people get to see it in person. To counter that, I'm sharing a bit of my decorations here.

Last year, I went a bit overboard. Our 2014 decorations are a mix of old and new with nothing too complicated. I tried to keep it simple and limit the stress associated with creating, displaying, and tearing down decorations while still bringing a bit of holiday cheer to our home. 

Our tree is up in the formal livingroom again. It's smaller than last year (and definitely not as nice of a noble fir as we've had in the past), but we managed to fill the entire tree with just lights, an extended felt ball garland, and sentimental ornaments. No filler bulbs this year! 

Christmas trees are often a topic of discussion amongst parents of toddlers. Our rule is that anything that can be reached can be touched...with one finger. Madeleine has responded well to this (this year) because it doesn't feel so off-limits and, therefore, attractive, and she is still able to indulge her curiosity (mostly) without damaging things. I also strategically decorated the tree so that ornaments on the lower half of the tree are unbreakable, fixable, or replaceable. 

Even this guy loves to look at the lights and grab at ornaments. He doesn't seem to mind that the crazy thing is drying out at record speed. 

Our formal livingroom mantel is bright and cheerful without a lot of effort. I wanted to highlight the new piece of art (depicting the location of our wedding) but still make it feel like Christmas. I think that the new felt ball tree, our stockings, and those gorgeous Glassybabies (in new fern, happiness, dolphin, and crayola) do just that! 

I added letters to our stockings this year (inspired by this). I don't love the scale, but they'll be fine placeholders until I find the perfect font and size. And, yes, our initials spell out a word. It wasn't intentional, but we're embracing it! 

In the livingroom where we spend a lot of our time, I've dialed things back quite a bit. This year, I'm displaying a few ornaments on this awesome driftwood tree my mom and stepdad made for me, and I've reused an older bunting (tutorial here).

I stole the Santa photo idea from a friend. Each year, we'll get to look back at the previous years' visits to Santa while adding a new one to the mix. It's a little hard for me to believe that this is already our third Christmas with kiddos!

For the shelves, I pulled out some old favorites, including my Joy to the World. This will always be special to me because I made it shortly after I found out I was pregnant with Madeleine, while George was out snowboarding and I had an afternoon alone with my thoughts. 

Even though Christmas is just one day, I enjoy our special decorations all month long. Hopefully you've enjoyed seeing them, too!