Happy Friday and Merry Christmas friends! Tis the season to share our annual Christmas home tour where we look at how our home is decked out for the holidays. It’s truly one of my favorite post every year since I love looking back on past tours to see what has changed and what’s remained the same.
Two things that are very important to me each year is that 1) I reuse as much of my old decorations as possible and 2) I very carefully add new decorations to my stash. With a smaller home, my storage is limited and I want to make sure that I am using the space I have to store things that I love and actually use.
To keep things feeling fresh, I always move things around and use items in different spaces each year. This keeps things interesting and makes it a fun challenge to try to do something different with stuff I already own. It’s also great for the pocketbook. 🙂
Well, without further ado, grab yourself a cup of tea (or coffee with egg nog!) and join me in a casual tour around our home.
2023 Holiday Home Tour
First up is the staircase. With a split level home, this really is the first thing you see when you walk in. In order to give that festive feeling right off the bat, i try to give my stairs as much holiday cheer as I can. This year I re-used my faux evergreen garland and draped it around the metal railing, swooping down and then connecting with the railing using plastic zip ties. Then I added a few black velvet bows to cover the zip ties.
The paper bag stars were a fun addition. Have you tried these yet? they are SO easy and have so much impact for such simple ingredients. I created a cluster of three stars and tied them to the stair rail. I love how they catch your eye as you walk into the basement.
And peeking around the corner is our fresh cut Christmas tree! This year we drove out to a tree farm and cut the prettiest Grand Fir that has this really citrusy/fir scent that fils the room. While I missed the adventure of cutting a tree off the mountain, the fullness and sturdiness of this farmed tree has me charmed this year.
The kids decorated the tree themselves this year, without any help! I loved watching them carefully unwrap each ornament and hang it on the tree. The excitement they had when they found an ornament they had made, or one they remembered from last year was just too cute. Plus it really helped reduce the amount of decorating I had to do, which I was thankful for!
A few presents are already under the tree! I still have more to wrap, but it feels good to say I’m done with my Christmas shopping.
The bookshelves in the living room are feeling festive as well. I gave them a good declutter before decorating for Christmas so I had a bit of a blank slate for decorating. Every year find myself mixing up what I put on the shelves. This year I found myself using a white, green and black scheme with a little village, assorted ceramic trees and vases and even a faux garland across the top. The record player with the vintage Rudolph record has been a hit with the kids. Although it’s definitely time to expand our Christmas record collection as this one has been played quite a few times on repeat.
While the kitchen is 99% the same as always, I did bring in my vintage brass deer figures to bring a little holiday cheer. I’ve never put them in the kitchen before and get a real kick out of how the gold plays nicely with our original walnut cabinets and brass colored hardware. Honestly I feel like moving things around your house is the secret to not getting tired of the same decor year after year.
In our bedroom I added a light up birch tree in a woven basket. It’s not exactly a Christmas tree, but the white lights help so much during these dark December days.
The office/art room got a good clean out and I made sure our paper tray and art caddy were stocked to encourage homemade card making. The kids and I had fun making an old school green and white paper chain and seeing it in the office make me happy every time I go in there. We aren’t cutting the links as an advent calendar, but more just enjoying the color and festivities of the garland.
Of course I had to add a few touches to the laundry room shelf. When I was building this shelf I specifically had Christmas decorations in mind, knowing that it would be the perfect display spot. I’m loving how the large bottle brush trees and modern Dala horse bring holiday cheer to boring tasks like doing the laundry. 🙂
Last but not least, our growing snake plant received a strand of batter powered LED lights. I found the lights in my Christmas box and though, why not? White lights make anything festive, even a snake plant.
And that’s a wrap! Hopefully you have enjoyed our little Christmas tour around the house. I can’t wait to see what happens in the next year as we contemplate a kitchen/great room remodel (!!!) Exciting times!
If you would like to see our previous Christmas tours, you can check out the posts below:
A Smallish Minimalist Christmas
Happy holidays!
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