Holiday Home Tour 2016

The Nester announced she was hosting an imperfect holiday home tour so I decided to jump on the bandwagon as that description fits our holiday home perfectly. Nothing too precious or fancy here.

I added the cedar garland to the front door and I love it! I think next year we’ll add lights but let’s baby-step this!

You may remember the last time I shared our Christmas decorations, we had just moved into our new rental a month and a half earlier. I was/am pretty proud of how quickly we were able to settle in and deck the halls. Since we’ve been here two years now, we’ve added more decor and more stuff (hello three kids) and I dare say it looks a bit more homey. So come on in!

We went the artificial Christmas tree route once we moved to California as we seemed to always be traveling during the holidays and my neurotic self couldn’t handle the dry needle fire danger while we were away from home.

I love that it is a snap to put up but missed that glorious cedar smell. The LA flower mart solved that for us, we buy a roll of fresh cedar garland every year and throw it on every available surface.

This year I added eucalyptus to the garland after being inspired by this pin. I love the texture it adds but after two weeks it started to dry out quite a bit and the eucalyptus smell was overpowering the cedar so I plucked it out and we are currently just rocking the cedar swag.

I picked up the small pom-pom garland at Michael’s, of all places. It isn’t the heavy duty wool balls that I’ve used for other garland but it’s cheery and cheap, so it’s a winner. I handmade the large pom-pom garland using Emily’s tutorial. The pom-pom maker is essential!

On our white shelves flanking the fireplace, I just added our collection of nutcrackers, our elf, and some candy canes to make it bit more festive. I have this Lindsay Letters print displayed all year but I think it works beautifully for Christmas too.

Our dining room got gussied up with more garland (there was SO much leftover!). I love adding the mercury glass ornaments to the light fixture for a little more sparkle. That glorious gingerbread house courtesy of TJ’s and my preschoolers’ artistic direction.

We had to start displaying our nativity scene on the buffet as baby Jesus kept disappearing into the toy pile. I snagged those candle holders (which also stay out all year) at TJMaxx and the battery powered candles are making my life. I love that they just click on every night at the strike of 5:30.

I added a few bottle brush trees to our thrifted console and a boxwood wreath + bells to the tobacco basket. I think it makes this little corner pretty cheery!

After posting these pictures, it seems like I might have reached my limit on Lindsay’s prints. 

I didn’t do much in the kitchen besides adding our advent calendar on one wall.

I put some paper whites out and threw the felt mistletoe garland over the chalkboard.

I love the garland but it was definitely an undertaking of epic proportions!

We added a bit of Christmas cheer to the kids’ rooms too but they really took over on the decorating. Hudson’s tree is now exclusively outfitted with Lucy’s teething toys. Harper likes to set up the little people nativity set just so, with an occasional guest appearance by Ariel or Snow White. I love that they get into the Christmas spirit! They love their trees and everything about the Christmas season still feels so magical to them.

I hope you enjoyed the peek into our holiday home! Here’s hoping for cozy nights and family fun for the next ten days!