Deck the Halls

One of our favorite Holiday Traditions is decorating the house for Christmas. Since Scott and I are usually away for Christmas and Thanksgiving, we like to decorate early so we can experience the Christmas Cheer as long as possible. We start our Christmas decorating the weekend before Thanksgiving. It may seem a little early to some, but we love it! So this year we started decorating right away. We usually go out and purchase new decorations to add to our collection to make each year a little better than the last. This year money was a little tight so we were happy with what we had. We did buy a new stocking and stocking holder for Brendan and the "Little People" Santa & Mrs. Clause, other than that we spread what we had around the apartment.

Decorating for Christmas is hectic at first (not only because we have a 4 month old around), we start with a deep clean of the entire house before setting out the decorations, we then take room by room setting up the decor together. Not a room is missed! Every year we have "discussion" (argument) about how we want the house to be decorated, I tend to lean more towards the elegant, matching Christmas, (white lights, themed tree, hallmark, nativity scenes, candles and order), while Scott enjoys more of the "family" style Christmas, (colored lights, cheap glass balls, snow-globes, Santa's, snowmen, and the fake silver garland). This year, I think we have finally reached a compromise, sure we had a discussions about why we don't have snow-globes in the house, but overall, we have come together in our decorating style. (I must admit, he has given in to my decorating style more than I have to his, you will notice we still don't have snow globes or that silver garland that we once did.)

Below are the pictures of our decorated Christmas house, here is a tour of our little but wonderful apartment!

*****Our living room is set up differently this year than it has been in the past, we usually like our nativity set to sit in front of the window, but our set up this year didn't allow for it. The garland hangs above the window, the tree in the center of the room, you probably can't tell, but both the tree and the garland are decorated with colored lights for my husband. My favorite part is the bookshelf full of Christmas nick-knacks that have stories of their own. One of Scott's favorite are the candy dishes set about the room that he insists on keeping full!*****
*****On the other side of the Living room is our little sitting area. More garland hangs above our Kitchen area, the stockings are hung with our initials and the Santa from Scott's grandparents stands in the corner.*****

*****Our Kitchen doesn't have as many decorations, we have a set of Christmas dishes with 4 place settings, my Grandmother bought me a beautiful set of Christmas dishes with 8 settings but we haven't pulled it out yet. There is a small Christmas Tree in the corner with glass decorations that were a wedding gift from Scott's Grandma & Poppy.*****

*****The Bathroom is actually my favorite room to decorate, as funny as that sounds. You can't get the full effect of the decorations because it is so small to take a picture. But you can sort of see the red shower curtain with Christmas balls hanging and the Green & Red towels (I know the color is a little off). I decorated it like this for the first time last year and I love how it looks!*****

*****This is the first year we have put decorations in the spare room, but being that it is now Brendan's room, Scott thought he should have decorations too, we have the lights above his window which Brendan loves to stare at, and a tiny Christmas tree in the corner by his crib (not pictured)*****

*****Our bedroom is pretty much decorated by the bedspread my Grandmother gave me last year, I really think it does enough for the room, and the cradle that is no longer being used has stuffed reindeer that I have had since I was little (some how, I also have my sister's reindeer)*****

*****Finally, our Christmas Tree, it's little and fake (Scott is allergic to real Christmas Trees) but it is just perfect for our apartment. Maybe one day when we have a house we can get a nice big tree to fill the room but for now, our little 6 foot tree is perfect for our little family! *****

Thanks for joining me on the tour of our apartment as I was able to show off all our hard work and Christmas decorations!!