I love decorating.  Thanks to Pinterest and self-taught design via HGTV, I’ve gotten much better than I used to be.  My husband used to say I had great taste, but trouble putting things together.  And he wasn’t wrong.  While I love decorating, I don’t really change up the look in our home very often.  But I do love to decorate for Christmas.  There’s something magical about the holiday season, and it’s my favorite time of year.  The decorations start going up the day after Thanksgiving (since my husband is a scrooge and refuses to decorate until after his favorite holiday), and stay up until the new year. 

This year marks the 4th Christmas in our house, and the decorations have changed only slightly the past three years.  Our living room fireplace and built-ins anchor our downstairs living space and allow for a large display of smaller items.  I really love my built-ins, but sometimes they can get a little too cluttered and start to look like Christmas spirit exploded in chaos.  But we’re used to chaos around here, so we roll with it.  I do have an idea to streamline the décor in a big way next year though!  

I love decorating with items that remind me of my childhood, or with actual childhood items as well.  Growing up, there was a house down the road that had my favorite holiday decoration.  It wasn’t anything fancy, the small porch sported a clothesline of Santa’s long john pajamas.  For some reason, I just loved this house growing up.  Coincidentally, it’s still just down the road from where we live now, and, Santa still lives there!  I smile every time I drive by.  While not nearly as cute, I do love my little Santa clothesline I hung above the mantel this year.  We have a tiny Santa that lives here, apparently.

For years, we’ve had an artificial Christmas tree, which we’ve adorned with ornaments matching a traditional color scheme and have added ornaments our kids have received throughout the years.  However, this year, we decided to get a second, real Christmas tree.  I had no idea how happy this would make me!  I was smiling like a kid on Christmas morning when we put it up in our front entryway.  We decided to make this tree our vintage Christmas tree – we decorated it with the ornaments from Jon and my childhood, that have for the most part remained untouched the last 10 years.  In the spirit of a throwback tree, we opted for the large, colorful bulbs to top off the vintage feel.  Which, in case you’re wondering, are ceramic and very fragile.  I shattered a couple bulbs before we were even able to water the dang tree.  Jon and I decorated our vintage tree one night after the kids went to bed.   After he got over the initial complaints of having to decorate, we had a fun time unwrapping our old ornaments and reminiscing.  A cheap, nostalgia-filled date night in. 

The window wreaths are another new addition this year.  I visited a friend’s house shortly after Thanksgiving and she had wreaths hanging in her dining room.  I had been thinking of adding some to the inside of my house and seeing hers encouraged me to come home and create my own.  I decided to hang them offsetting one another because it reminded me of jingle bells.  I love them so much, I may just leave them up all winter long. 

The Christmas village is another throwback from my childhood.  My mom actually gifted hers to me a few years ago, and I love to set it up in our formal dining room.  I can remember setting it up with my mom when I was younger, and, although some lights have since gone out in the town square, those little people haven’t aged a bit.

I can only hope our family holiday traditions create lasting memories for our children.  Someday maybe they’ll place the same ornaments on a vintage tree and remember our tradition of picking out a new one each year when they visit Santa.  Or maybe they’ll remember decorating the tree as a family, hiding the Santa Dad hates in plain sight, and looking for Sparkle the Elf each morning.  And here’s to hoping they’ll forget the time mom yelled an “adult” word when she shattered the new Christmas lights.  To us, the Christmas season is one of celebrating the birth of Jesus, and spending time with family.  It’s not so much about the gifts around the tree, as much as the memories made there, am I right? 

May you have a very happy holiday that brings warmth and joy to you and yours.