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If you know me, you know that I LOVE Christmas. I know it is not even Halloween yet, but you’ll have to trust me when I say that the cutest holiday decor always sells out before Thanksgiving!
I have noticed a few major trends this year – gingerbread and mushrooms.
I have updated my AMAZON SHOP with all of my Christmas finds.
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Hello my dear internet readers. It’s been a month since my last post. I’ve been a little busy… decorating, that is! It took me nearly all of November to get my decor up.
On the antique piano, my pretty Santas are on display. A reindeer garland is also resting on the piano.
In the guest bathroom, a simple lit tree adorns the room. The room smells of Thymes Frasier Fir by the way. It is my favorite Christmas scent!
My new to me French Vasselier is decorated for Christmas too. I meant to share this new piece on the blog earlier, but get to it.
I put my Steiff snowmen on this side of the fireplace this year. A longtime favorite of mine! I’ve been collecting these for years. Steiff has not released any new ones, so if someone from Steiff is reading this, do this gal a favor and release a new one!
The only tree I photographed decently with my phone is the chef tree.
Juggling work, mom life, and housework has been a challenge. Then on top of decorating the house… it was a lot of work. Why do it? Well, because I like it! I decorate early and do a little every day so the entire month of December I can enjoy it! Then in December I can focus on events… and BAKING! If you have not made my peppermint chocolate macarons, then you are missing out!!
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If you don’t know, I LOVE Christmas. As we turn our clocks back, I hate how dark it is so early. I love the glow of ambient light from a Christmas tree. So that’s why I put up my Christmas trees early. Today I’m sharing my top 5 tips for decorating Christmas trees.
Tip #1 – If you are using a faux tree, make sure you fluff the branches before you start decorating. They all get smashed in the box. By fluff I mean – pull apart, shape, until the tree looks good.
Tip #2 – Use extra picks or faux greenery in your tree. I like to use picks with red as I think red really pops on this flocked tree – here I used faux sugared berries. They don’t have to be expensive – these were found at Joann’s for under $2.
Tip #3 – Put your garland on before your breakable ornaments. I know this goes against what many professionals will tell you – but after breaking some ornaments with my garland, I now do it the opposite way!
Tip #4 – Layer your ornaments. You want to have some placed deeper into the branches. This adds dimension. In fact, you can have two ornaments on the branch – one deep and one at the tip.
Tip #5 – Have a tree theme. This is my Woodland tree. Almost of the ornaments have either animals or nature. Now, you don’t have to necessarily do a “themed tree”. You can create a theme by using a color. Use plain ornament balls that are all the same, or ribbon that’s all the same, to create a cohesive look.
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Welcome to my Grand Christmas house tour!
I’ve been MIA for the month of November as I was busy decorating my house!! This year I had to think about how to decorate with a 1.5 year old running around. What I did was used lots of tabletop little trees and put breakable ornaments out of reach on them.
Let’s start with my chef tree! I’ve been collecting the Steinbach wooden chef ornaments for years.
My mora clock flanked by a few Christmas touches
The gingerbread Advent calendar
A mini tree full of mini German wooden and glass ornaments.
The little glitter house village sits atop the piano.
The pastel room! The tree has faux glass balls within children’s reach. This is the only tree the toddler has touched.
My other department 56 Christmas village, which children love! Lights up at night time. Instead of Department 56 figurines I tucked in some children’s favorite characters instead.
My big 10 foot tree! It is nature/woodland themed again this year. I put only non breakable ornaments on the lower part of the tree that are within a toddler’s reach. Only a few breakable ornaments are up high… even beyond my reach! Haha! Needed a ladder to put those up there!
The dining room I did a new dessert themed garland to match the sweets tree to the right.
I got a few new nutcrackers this year. They are the Kurt Adler Hollywood nutcrackers. I love how whimsical they are! Of course they are keeping with the dessert theme! The houses on their heads light up.
My favorite little sweets tree!
The dining room! It is so fun at nighttime. I added red and white Christmas lights to the garland to look like candy cane striping!
The main mantel. I hung stockings up and then realized someone could yank them onto her head…so for now, stockings will only be put up ‘til Christmas Eve.
I hope you enjoyed my Christmas tour this year. I’ll post a nighttime video on Instagram sometime before Christmas. Hope to show my Christmas kitchen too… frankly it is not clean so I did not take pictures of it!
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This weekend is Halloween which means… next week is the start of the Christmas season (in my house, at least!!).
I’m sharing a few favorite French country Christmas finds for the year since they will sell out quickly with the supply chain problems.
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Since my daughter’s nursery is pink and girly, I thought HEY! Why not a pink tree for her room too?!
Her pink flocked tree is full of snowlady ballerinas (from Hobby Lobby) and other little pink ornaments. While this year she can’t reach this tree, next year I will take all the breakable glass ones off (there are only two ro three).
Her cute little Christmas blanket is from Atelier Choux.
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A look at this year’s woodland/nature tree. This tree theme is always my favorite and so I moved it to “the big tree” in the living room this year.
It is full of animals and natural elements – ironic for a faux tree! This year it is next to the fireplace – kind of “in the way”, but I like its spot here this year!
It was a lot of fun decorating this tree this year!
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Happy December! I can’t believe that it is already December! Where did the time go? Well, I’ve spent all of November decking the halls here at my house. For whom? Well for me, since there aren’t any parties. (Actually it’s always been for me because I love Christmas.
This is what I’m calling my Vintage Christmas tree this year. It is full of vintage and vintage style ornaments. Most of the ornaments are either Santas or Snowmen, as it turns out.
Above, a closer look at my ornaments. Below, two larger nutcrackers greet non-existent guests at the door (AKA me, myself and I!)
I can’t believe I did not do a single post this November. Normally I post about my Thanksgiving table as we have a huge party… did not do that this year!
All my time is spent with the new babe (she’s doing great, BTW) and my spare time is spent decorating for Christmas…. leaving no time for the blog! She’s napping right now, so I thought I’d share a post with you.
Here’s hoping I can share a few others of my Christmas house this year!
I do post on Instagram frequently as that is about all the time I have for these days.
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I know it is a little bit early to post about Christmas but AMAZON PRIME DAY is TOMORROW and there are sure to be some great deals.
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A tour of my Christmas kitchen this year!!
My Juliska Christmas punchbowl is filled with oranges with cloves.
Over the hood sits a collection of nutcrackers.
This is the fireplace mantel that faces the kitchen. I placed German glitter houses with mercury glass trees here this year. At nighttime they light up!
The Christmas pyramids are on a display on the other island. It is fun to light them all!
Wintry animals are perched on top of the fridge.
Here is my coffee, tea and hot chocolate bar!
The chef tree sits in the corner in the kitchen!
This is my last post for 2019!!! Wishing you all a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR (and DECADE!!)
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This is one of my new themed trees this year!
This is sitting on the hallway on the way to the vegetable garden and so it is a perfect theme for this location! We owned many of these ornaments before and they were on various trees… I shopped my own trees and pulled them for this one!
Then of course I found some cute ornaments this year to add to it!
My favorite new addition in this radish!
We have so much fun decorating our various trees. My mom and I put them up together.
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This year’s mantle theme in the dining room is a Nutcracker Christmas!
I displayed my favorite nutcrackers on this mantel this year.
I found these little nutcracker ornament hooks as well as one of the large nutcrackers at estate sales.
Since the nutcrackers are all Santas, I put my red stockings here.
And this is just a close up of the garland and fireplace. The fireplace mantel is antique.
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A few years ago I receive the cutest gingerbread house cake pans and finally this year I got around to baking gingerbread house cakes!
Aren’t they the cutest little things?? I have actually two pans, a mini cakelet house pan and a larger pan that has one big house on it!
The recipe is from Nordic Ware. I am including it here because I am afraid I will lose it!
Gingerbread Cake
recipe from Nordicware
Ingredients
2 3/4 cups cake flour
1 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp ground ginger
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 cup butter, softened
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cups milk
Directions
Heat oven to 325F (I did convection). Grease and lightly flour pan and set aside. In medius bowl, combine flour, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, salt and baking powder and set aside.
In large bowl, combine sugar, brown sugar, and butter. Beat about 3 minutes, until light and fluffy, scraping bowl often. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Blend in vanilla. Reduce mixer speed to low. Alternate adding the flour mixture and milk into the sugar mixture.
Spoon batter into prepared pan. Place pan on a baking sheet and bake for 55-65min (for the cakelet pan on 325F convection, mine were done at 45 minutes). Bake until toothpick inserted in the center does out clean. Cool upright in pan for 10 minutes.
Remove cake from pan onto cooling rack and cool completely.
Sugared Cranberries
To make sugared cranberries, in a sauce pan, add 1/2cup granulated sugar and mix into 1/2 cup water. Add medium heat and stir until it is just sugar has just dissolved. Remove from heat. Then, add fresh cranberries to the sugar syrup. Then take the cranberries and roll in a bowl of granulated sugar. Place on wax paper and allow to dry for at least 1 hour. I did the same thing with the fresh rosemary.
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It seems that whenever I share one of my favorite trees, I say… now THIS is my favorite tree! This is my sweets tree!!!
It is full of all kinds of desserts – candy canes, pies, cakes, cookies, macarons, ice cream, etc!
I have to confess I do enjoy hunting for dessert ornaments the most!
It seems the ornaments with strawberries stand out the most on a flocked tree!
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Over the past few years, I have had a vintage tree or two. This year I combined my vintage trees and added a few pink ornaments!
You see, DH said no decorating with pink… well, I bent the rules and put pink on a tree! It’s only temporary… so he can’t complain!
I love this new little Bambi ornament – found him at Hobby Lobby in pink and blue!
The pink balls with snow I got at Macy’s this year. Many of the other ornaments I already owned!
My pastel bottlebrush trees made their way into this room too! Last year I had the Woodland tree here, but I prefer this softer color palette in my French fufu room!
Found this pink snowman at Tuesday Morning a few years ago! Wish they made more of that set!
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