As promised, here's a peek at our Christmas decor this year!
Every year it's a little bit different, and every year I think I love it best - that's true this year again! I love how we've pared down this year. As I mentioned in my last post, we didn't buy any new decorations, and in fact, ended up donating a few of our decorations along the way.
I love all sorts of Christmas decor - rustic and classic red and green, bright and colourful, modern and minimalist; it's all glorious! This year ours was decidedly minimal with a lot of white and natural pieces (woods, metals, oranges, greenery). I think we've struck a balance that really suits our home and our hearts which has taken years to accomplish. We've done years without a tree at all for fear of letting the material side of the holidays take too much precedence. We've done years with more decorations where we've gone over budget getting new things, chasing that false idea of perfection. I feel like we're finally in a place where we have some cherished Christmas decorations that are meaningful to us (mostly thrifted), but it's not distracting or all-consuming both in our mindset nor in the space taken up in our little nest.
I love little touches that you might even miss if you pass too quickly - like the little trees in the floating houses and the framed map of the North Pole. The North Pole print is from Bold Tuesday, a company I worked with last month. When I chose that print I totally had Christmas in mind, even though we don't even do Santa haha!
Here are a few shots of the whole living area. You'll notice we don't have a lot of space (this is basically it, folks!) so we didn't want decorations to take over. We also use the back door regularly, so it can get cluttered quickly, even as I have the kids clear their backpacks and snow gear away every day after school.
Here's a closer look at our tree - these ornaments are mostly thrifted and from my childhood with a few new ones that we've bought for the kids each year. I especially love the blue and white ones which we picked up in Amsterdam years ago and the 1950's vintage ornaments that I found at the thrift store!
I also love the kids to have a bit of Christmas decor in their shared room. A few kid-friendly decorations like their own small tree and a plastic nativity set make for fun play that they look forward to every year, even now that they're a bit older! Whenever friends come over to play, the nativity set is the first thing they play with! So interesting to see that curiosity in little kids. I also find keeping Christmas books for only the month of December does make them so special! Since December 1 we've been reading our favourite Christmas books (you can see them all in the BOOKS stories archive on my Instagram) and watching Frosty, Rudolph, and The Grinch. New Christmas programs that we've fallen for this year are the Storybots Christmas, Angela's Christmas, and Shrek Christmas, all on Netflix.
Even our bedroom has a little sparkle! But the garland on our bed only lasted a night, haha! It's the same garland that is now on the fireplace. I couldn't decide on a pillow so I put it to the Instgram stories community and landed on the plaid after all. I have the red one on the grey chair in my room though, so it's still being used.
Here's one last little look at a few touches. I really loved dressing our home up for the holidays but am always conscious of not letting the material side of decorating become too important. As a creative type, I love design and decor, and it helps me build traditions for my family and create an atmosphere for celebrating. Such a hard balance when we don't want our minds distracted away from Christ and his coming at Christmastime. I'd love to hear how you decorate (or don't!) at the holidays, and feel free to send me links to your own holiday tours in the comments or over on Instagram!
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