If you're so inclined, you can see our dining room, kitchen and bedroom Christmas style
here.
The best part of the start of the Christmas season is a new tradition: going down to our farm to cut down our own tree, and lug that bad boy up to the house (which is up a hill - it's a work out). This year, we started on Thanksgiving morning, just after it snowed, and got our first tree. It was perfect.
So, we have two living rooms and we never know what to do with the front room. We call it the sitting room because there's no TV in there, and usually people just, you know, sit in there. During Christmas, however, with the real wood-burning fireplace and a giant tree, it's absolute perfection. This is the room where we put our main tree, and this year, guys, we got a fatty. The trees don't look that big when you're out on the farm, but once inside, they're about twice the size you think they'll be.
When it comes to our main Christmas tree, I love it to be perfectly imperfect. Pinterest trees are pretty and all, but when we decorate our trees, I forget about color flow, pattern and symmetry all together and just have fun putting all our ornaments on, and talk about the memories behind them. We both also really love trees that aren't perfectly shaped. I love it when trees have crazy branches that stick out everywhere, and this tree has plenty of that goin' on. I'm going to be sad to see this one go.
Over the years, we've assumed a woodland creature theme for ornaments, and we're pretty happy it turned out that way. Most of our ornaments are bottlebrush critters, lots of owls and the occasional nod to places we've visited in our life together. None of it matches, and it couldn't be more wonderful.
This year in our room, I was a bit inspired by Fixer Upper's Joanna Gaines. Believe it or not, I didn't even know about this show until a month or two ago when we started to binge-watch it on Netflix. So many people have told me that I needed to watch this show because Joanna and I have a similar aesthetic, but I just kept putting it off and didn't make the connection that Fixer Upper has this huge cult following of people that share my love of farmhouse and cottage style. The funny thing is, though, is that I've been shopping at Magnolia Marketplace, the Gaines' online shop, for about a year, and had no idea until recently it was the Fixer Upper people.
So anyway, end tangent. Some of the decor in here is carried over from last year. Our stockings and pine garland on the mantel will never change. But I added some new pillows. When I saw these gray deer toile pillows, I knew they didn't really go with anything we currently had, but I was a bit dramatic and said my soul would be sucked away if I didn't get these. So, I got them, and putting one in each armchair we have in here totally makes me happy because they're the first things you see when you walk in.
I was stuck on our coffee table this year because I was super tired of the same arrangement I've done for the past several years. So, after seeing the Fixer Upper Christmas special where Chip and Joanna renovated their B&B, I was totally inspired by her coffee table design using two birch logs filled with eucalyptus. I decorate with eucalyptus a ton all year 'round, so it just clicked. But, I needed some birch vases. And I spent about half my life looking for some that I felt were reasonably priced. And I never found them. So, I just decided to go find some birch logs out in our woods. Thanksgiving morning, after a lovely snowfall, Josh and I trekked out to our woods, found a huge birch tree that had fallen over, and start to chop up little pieces to take back to the house with us. We drilled a hole down the center, stuffed 'em with some faux eucalyptus and red berries, and my inner Joanna had officially been channeled.
On our sofa, I re-used the red and green plaid pillows from last year, and I'm not sold on how they look mixed with the gray toile, but it's okay for now.
In our other living room, the TV room, we have another woodsy retreat. This is where the wood-burning stove lives, along with our big, comfy sectional and our TV. I wanted a small tree in here because you canNOT watch Christmas movies in a room without a Christmas tree. I tried not to repeat the same mistake with the dining room tree, and looked for a super small one out on the farm, and I did pretty well with the size. It's a cute little fluffy tree, and I'll have a hard time saying goodbye to this one, too. It needs more ornaments, but it's an excuse to do more online shopping.
Yessssssss.
I tried to infuse a little more farmhouse style with our pillows and decor in here this year. I began ordering pillows on Etsy months ago to prep for Christmas, and I started with the big red grainsack one in the corner. I adore this pillow for Christmas, and words cannot express the joy it brings me. Josh has no opinion on it.
I also added this pine tree and red cardinal pillow for a fun pop of green, and this reindeer/moose pillow as well.
On our sofa tables in the back of the sofa, I just kept it simple and carried over the metal and wood lanterns we have all year 'round, stuck some pine branches in them and rearranged some other decor pieces we had in other rooms. It never looks good back there, but I feel like which each season, I come closer to what I'm looking for.
I got totally lost (and honestly, tired of decorating) by the time I started to put out the rest of our things in here. The coffee table tray just got filled with pinecones and eucalyptus, and then I was over it after that, so it's not super exciting. On our TV stand, I added a little wooden sled, and this lantern-shaped snow globe, both of which I found at TJ Maxx.
On our wooden ladder in the corner, I got this tiny Merry Kiss Moose pillow because it makes me giggle every time I see it. At first, Josh thought it was super weird (as I'm sure many of you do right now), but it's grown on him, and now he loves to say
Merry Kiss Moose! whenever appropriate. Which is obviously all the time.
I'm always, always stuck on how to decorate our mantel for any time of the year. It's not a very deep beam (less than 6 inches), so I'm limited on stuff that will fit up there. This year, I had the idea of hanging wreaths from the ceiling with grainsack ribbon, and it totally worked. I ended up making the wreaths myself because finding faux eucalyptus/pine wreaths in the exact style I had concocted in my head was impossible. I had fun making them, too, so it was #totallyworthit. The little twig reindeer are carried over from last year, and they're on a timer, so they light up at around 5 o'clock every day.
I hope next year to add another tree to our entryway so people can be greeted by it when they come in. I have
one whole year to convince Josh that this will be absolutely necessary. That will make four, count 'em four real trees next year, plus the tiny faux tree in our bedroom. Totally necessary.
And that's all, friends! We have a few decorations in our entryway, but also, lots of scrap wood, so I wasn't up to taking photos of it (it's not all that exciting, anyway). I'm hoping that next year, our guest bathroom and guest room will be complete, and I'll be able to infuse those spaces with Christmas cheer, in case anyone wants to come visit us on our little tree farm.
