deck the halls...

I've been meaning to change our theme this year, but never got around to it.  So we stuck with the same red, green and gold theme.

Our tree is two years old.  I got it at Garden Ridge for I think $79!  It stands at 7.5 feet tall, and pre-lit, although the lights on one side has never worked.  This year, more lights have died on us, so I had to put two strings of lights on the tree instead of one.  I'm not sure if you notice but there are more lights at the bottom of the tree than on the top.  Paul realized this after I'd hung all the ornaments, and I was NOT going to mess with it.  It does make me cringe a little knowing that the lights aren't equally distributed, but there's always next year.  (Ahh, i shouldn't have told you.  Now you're looking at the top of the tree right - RIGHT?)

I kept the same ornaments and the same ribbons as the past two years.  Except we may have thrown away some of the red and gold ones with glitter detailing by accident last year, so I bought some new ones that looked a little similar.  We have some ornaments that Paul made when he was in elementary school and they're so cute!  I did throw away the swirly, glittery sticks that I used last year and bought new ones this year because it had almost no glitter left.  I stuck them in random spots and put more around the top of the tree to emphasize the star. 

Didn't really change a whole lot with the rest of the room.  We had to move our studly chairs so we could put the tree in front of the window.  I replaced the pillows to red ones that we already had to make it more festive.  Our side table is the same, except I added this gold reindeer that I found at Goodwill and filled it with decorative pine cones. 

Our dining table looks a little blah.  I'll try harder next year.

Here's another close up of my pine cone topiaries.

Oh and here are our chairs!  They came in over Thanksgiving weekend.  The cushion is nice on your bum, and they're as solid as the table.  Now we just need to get some head chairs.

For our little console table in the entryway, I put some pine cones and extra ornaments in a cloche and a tall vase.  I wanted real branches to put in the vase, but had no luck finding any large pieces in the backyard.  So, I just bought these at Michael's.  I found this candle on the Square in one of the antique stores.  I don't know if you can see it, but it's called "The Smell of Christmas."

This is our mantle in the family room.  You can't really do too much to it because it's not very wide.  It's always a challenge having to balance these two lit trees and garland.  Everything is the same, except I added ornaments on the garland.  We really need to get new stockings!  I got Paul's stocking for him one Christmas, and then when we got Bailey in 2007, I made her one, and made mine too.  As you can tell, I gave up when I got to mine.  Those are supposed to be bells next to my name.

We had a girls' night a few years ago where we decorated our own wreaths.  I've been hanging mine up on our pantry door every year. 

Next Christmas, I'm thinking about changing our theme to green, blue and gold.  All I really need are blue ornaments and I can reuse my green and gold ones.  They go on mega (Jamie Oliver style) sale after Christmas, so I'll see how much is left. 

The house just looks a lot better with Christmas decorations.  The neighborhood looks more cheerful when houses are glowing with Christmas lights.  I wish it was Christmas every day!