Holiday House Tour 2009

One of the decorating blogs I follow is having a Christmas Tour of Homes link party, so I decided to participate:

We do use a pre-lit faux tree for a few reasons, the biggest of which is that I hate putting lights on the tree.  Also, there is no yearly expense for a real tree and we also don’t have to remember to water it or pick up needles or worry about a dry tree catching on fire or disposing of a real tree…  So there you have it, but I do wish the fakes smelled good like the real thing.

(I have already posted this a couple of weeks ago, but thought it deserved a reappearance for any newcomers.) This is our time lapse video from this year of decorating the tree:

2009 Christmas Tree Time Lapse from Bradley Davis on Vimeo.

In high school, my mom and I went after-Christmas shopping and bought all white and gold decor.  When I moved out, she let me take it all with me!  Over the years I have added other colors back in, so that there is no longer a scheme, but I am a firm believer in surrounding yourself with the things you love and not being pigeon-holed into a ‘theme’ just because you chose it some time in the past.

 

Some of my favorite ornaments:

Wedding gift from my mom’s cousin Laura

Our official wedding ornament 🙂

Christmas gift from my cousin Olivia

From our honeymoon in the Bahamas

From our 1st anniversary trip to Washington D.C.

From our trip to the Grand Canyon

From buying our first home

From our trip to San Francisco (Muir Woods and Sonoma)

From our cruise to the Bahamas for our third anniversary

From our trip to Navarre Beach

From our trip to Panama City

From my trip to Argentina in 2001

From Bradley’s trip to Africa in 2009

Our Nativities:

First nativity I bought

Wedding gift from my aunt

Christmas gift from Bradley’s grandmother

Nativity that FIL brought back from Africa

Other fun holiday decorations around the house:

My little DIY decor made from big Christmas lights

Bradley got me this little tree at Lowes for my birthday the first year we were married.  He had seen me get excited about it in the store for it’s Dr. Seuss-ness, and he went back to get it for me.  So sweet!

My tablescape – the hurricane was a wedding present, I just added some red ribbon to our Ikea flower pots, the fun beaded pears were from a decor store downtown that was going out of business, my Winterberry dishes with red chargers and a gold snowflake runner (and of course my little birdies)

I added a little bit of garland to the buffet table and tucked some 25 cent snowflakes into it.  (Bonus the garland covers the lamp cord:)  On the mirror above the buffet I hung a cute ‘FaLaLa’ sign.

The UGA wreath I made last year (with a few additions)

I used the leftover garland from the buffet on the entry table in our foyer.  I wired some little gold ornaments into the garland to match the gold taper candles I had in the candlesticks.

I added a little sparkle to the candle plate

The card holder I got at Hallmark a few years ago (I wish I could find another one just like it since we always end up with a lot more cards than this will display…good problem to have 🙂

I really liked these mirror mosaic trees at Target, but didn’t want to drop the dough on decorations I can only use for a small portion of the year, so I found some acceptable substitutes at the Dollar Tree:

I will end the tour with some shots of the full tree

To see other fun Christmas decor tours just click on the button at the top of this post to go to The Nester’s Christmas Tour of Homes!