Our 2017 Christmas Home Tour

Welcome to a post I’ve been dying to write for years…it’s the first Christmas in our new home and I absolutely can’t wait to show it off!

Let me go on and preface this post with the following statement – our house is nowhere near done.  Not even close.  I honestly don’t know if it will ever be “done”…decorating and making a house a home is something that’s constantly changing and evolving.  But, we’re still lacking a few essential things (like a living room rug, dining room furniture, barstools, etc.) that we’re either waiting to purchase or haven’t decided on yet.  I’ll be sharing these areas as they’re completed, but I couldn’t wait to show you what we’ve done so far!

I feel like our home is going to look empty once we take down all of the holiday decorations.  We moved in late October, so we’ve had some kind of holiday decor out the entire time we’ve lived here.  I am kind of looking forward to cleaning up a little bit and having a more ordered home, but I’ll definitely miss all of the festive decorations we’ve had!

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As you’ll see in a few seconds, the decor on the outside of our home very much matches the inside.  The brown and gold theme I had going inside went with our exterior colors perfectly!  I’m thinking of adding some spotlights in the future, but for now, the lighted garland will do.

We have a very similar garland on the stairs inside our front door.

At the base of our stairs (walking into the main-level hallway) we have a sad little entry table. 🙂 We can’t decide what to do here!  I say leave the table and put a mirror above it; Noah says leave the area empty so we’re not constantly tripping over a table.  I don’t want to put a big hole in the wall until we decide, so for now, just the table stays.  I threw something festive on it to make look a little less sad. 😂

Looking back from the hallway to the front door

These aren’t exactly Christmas decorations, but we do have progress on the pictures in the hallway!  I finally decided on these three (and three more in the living room, as you’ll see in a second).  I’d love to add more to make a collage wall over the years. (Frames are Ribba from Ikea.)

And now, for the view that makes my heart go pitter-patter every time I see it…walking into the main living/kitchen area.

Our tree is very similar to what we’ve done in years’ past…I honestly haven’t added a ton to it this year.  I think it still goes wonderfully with what we’ve got going in the rest of the house.

Some people like one decorative and one family tree; I’m just not one of those people.  I want our family ornaments where I can enjoy them all the time.  So I might not have the prettiest or more Pinterest-worthy tree, but I can’t imagine not having these memories on our main tree.

 

(Our first Christmas card picture, 2008)

I posted these on Instagram a few days ago because I was just SO excited to see them finally all together!  Hundreds and hundreds (maybe even thousands) of hours went into making these cross-stitched stockings.  It was a labor of love that I don’t regret one bit – it makes me so happy seeing these all together.  And I can finally say that I am DONE with stockings for a long time! (The grandkids might get them if I’m not still burnt out from these. 😉

Pillow sources: gingham || brown

As you’ve probably seen in our Empty Home Tour, our floor plan is very open. The kitchen and living areas are really one big room. (Bowl is found here, but is discontinued.)

(We’ve had this Santa basically since we were married…it was in my classroom and has been in our home ever since!  Poor Santa’s beard looks a little rough from 2 kids constantly pulling at it, but it will hang there until it falls apart.)

I actually just repurposed these wreaths…they were on the outside of our Tuscaloosa home and I used them at our last home as well.  I just changed out the ribbon and added more brown touches to make them match our current colors!

We added the gingerbread house after I took the big picture, but I couldn’t resist sharing!  I think Emmie’s got a future in home decorating.

Our Elf (Eddie) has a love/hate relationship with Elsa.  She froze him a few years ago, and they now have a frenemy feud going.  This particular day she taped him to the pantry door…

🙂

We started the tradition of an advent calendar this year!  Eddie filled it full of story sheets and little treats one night for us.

We’ve been taping them on the cabinet below to help us remember the story. (Eddie let me know that he found the printable for this here.)

We’ll be filling this cookie jar up (for the third time) this week. Holiday diet is in full force around here!

 

Not a lot of decoration upstairs, but I do have this cute little tree in the playroom. (And yes, that is the DIY tree topper I made last year.  It needed a repair or two when it came out of storage, but it’s still going strong.)

I also have the kids’ knit stockings up here. Noah’s aunt makes these for all of the grandkids/great-grandkids in the family.  I was already well into our cross-stitched ones by the time we started getting these, but I still wanted to display them!

Now, I’m going to enjoy looking at this post and remembering the five seconds my house actually was this clean. 😉 Happy happy week before Christmas, friends!