Doing Christmas With Reckless Abandonment: A Holiday Home Tour

Merry Christmas y’all!  Okay…so it’s more like merry (belated) Christmas but better late than never.  This year for Christmas, I made it my mission to “do Christmas with reckless abandonment” since last year our Christmas celebrations and festivities were cut short (or nonexistent) because I was living in Vermont working at my new job while Colby was still in Maine trying to finish up the house projects so we could sell it.  Oh…and I was driving about 12 hours round trip home every weekend to help.  Most of our Christmas decor was packed up in a storage unit and we spent our Christmas vacation working on a kitchen remodel.  This year I vowed to do up Christmas, get my elf on, and celebrate the season.  Challenge accepted.  I even broke out the really good wrapping paper.  You know…the kind you save and hoard but never use because it’s too nice but maybe you’ll use it if the Pope comes by?  That stuff.

Colby and I even went and got a real Christmas tree for the season as a second tree in our living room.  I’m ashamed to admit that this was my first real Christmas tree, but certainly not the last.  We had grand intentions of making a day of our Christmas tree hunt, chopping one down ourselves at a Christmas tree farm, and hauling it back Griswold Family Christmas style, caroling all the way.  But alas, the weekend we had planned our Christmas tree hunt I was sick as a dog and Colby was just coming down with my cold.  So off to the local lot (family owned and operated at least) where the son who was outside doing “sales” asked if he could help us.  Sure.  “What are you looking for?” he says.  “A tree about this high,” we respond.  “How about this one?”….” we’ll take it”.  Out comes the forty bucks and into the back of the truck the tree goes.  It was anti-climactic and I think we were listening to Skynard on the way home (not singing “Joy to the World” like the Griswolds would have).  But isn’t she a beauty?!

It’s sans tree topper (although I found a post-Christmas clearance one for next year) and I’m a little short on ornaments (I thought a few boxes would suffice), but I love this tree oh so very much.  The ornaments all came from Home Goods.  I especially love the Russian ceramic ones.  It was one of those purchases where I clutched the ornaments at first site and wouldn’t let them go for fear of someone taking them while I was running back to the front of the store for a basket.  Crazy lady aisle 14 with arms full of ornaments.  The wood bead garland was a craft project.  They’re the wood beads I had bought to make beaded lamp shades a-la-Anthropologie-style for our landing makeover.  Hence that project still hasn’t been completed.  As for the tree skirt, I had a piece of mudcloth I had found at Brimfield this year intended for a pillow cover but just wrapped it around the tree base for an impromptu skirt.

When I started decorating for Christmas this year, I wanted to use all our Christmas decorations.  And by all, I mean ALL!  But they didn’t go too far so I concentrated on the living room, dining room, and a few sprinklings of Christmas cheer in the bedrooms and upstairs.  It’s amazing the difference in decorating a 1200 square foot house (our old house) compared to a 2400 square foot house (our current home).  At least my Christmas sparklies collection can expand and Target’s post-Christmas clearance shopping is justified.

It was exciting decorating a mantle for Christmas this year.  We didn’t have a fireplace or mantle in our old home so being able to hang our stockings with care from the mantle felt like a luxury.  The stockings that we use (mine, Colby’s, and Goose’s) are stockings from our childhood.  Colby’s stocking is one he’s had and used his entire life, knitted by his grandmother.  Mine is my childhood stocking and Goose’s is my mom’s old stocking.  She knitted matching stockings for the whole family a few years ago so I inherited the old stockings.

The sofa table is another favorite decor spot of mine for Christmas pretties and I pretty much decorated it the same as last year…just a new house.

The red houses are a Target post-Christmas clearance from a few years ago that I fill with sparkly lights instead of candles.

Onto the dining room and one of our latest furniture acquisitions, the dining room buffet.  The dining room is next on the makeover list (I’m starting a master makeover plan now) but that didn’t stop me from decorating it for Christmas.  In years past, it would have, but not this year.

One of my favorite Christmas treasures to put out every year is the ceramic house.  It’s my grandmother’s old house that she painted in ceramics class.  I remember this piece in her house when I was a child.  It used to entertain me for hours pulling the “light” pegs out and putting them back in.  Literally…hours.

Here’s a shot of the dining room from the front entry side of the room with tree number two.  Spoiler alert, it’s a fake.

This is what I consider my nostalgia tree.  The tree I decorate EXACTLY the same every year.  I’ve decorated this tree every year since my first apartment circa 2004.  It’s my family’s old fake Christmas tree that they gladly passed down to me (you annoyingly build the tree one little branch at a time and the color coding for building the tree has worn off the branches making it even more of a pain interesting to build now).  The angels are the Hallmark ornament series Mary’s Angels.  The series started when I was around three years old and my family has gifted me the yearly ornament every year since.  I can’t not put out the angel tree every year so it was nice this year having one tree to have fun with decorating and one tree to decorate old standby style.

Upstairs we spread a little Christmas cheer as well in the freshly painted (and lighted) hallway.  We have a bunch of tiny pine trees growing in the field part of our yard so we clipped one, put it into a galvanized bucket, and hung some flea-market-find vintage ornaments on it.  It added some much-needed cheer to the end of the hallway since it’s bare bones, missing curtains and even switch and outlet covers.

I also hung some jingle bells from the bedroom doors upstairs (more Target post-Christmas clearance finds from a few years back).

It wouldn’t be Christmas if I didn’t talk about the Christmas mints and the packaging of the Christmas mints.  For those of you who know the story of the mints, feel free to tune out, but it’s a story I’ll likely share with you every year.  Every year at Christmas I make homemade peppermint patties.  They’re like a York peppermint patty but sooooooo much better.  All those extra “O’s” are justified.  Trust me.  It’s a family recipe that has been passed down to me from generation to generation along with an antique doughnut hole cutter to cut the patties with.  My mom passed down the recipe and cutter to me a long time ago and I’ve been doing them justice ever since.  I make them each Christmas for all our friends and family.  For the last couple of years, I’ve had fun decorating some kraft paper boxes to hold the treats.  They’re leftover favor boxes from our wedding three-plus years ago.  This year I went with a satin black striped ribbon, faux greenery, and a joy/noel tag and it just might be my favorite combo to date.

And finally, the Campbell family Christmas card circa 2015.  If singing is my favorite mint making/packaging is my favorite, and sending cards is my second favorite.  Since we just moved, I went with Minted’s change of address Christmas card so everyone would have our new address (although I photoshopped out the address on the front of the card for privacy’s sake).  The back includes a photo of us, Goose included, in front of our house.  They were simple cards and one of our favorites to date.

Thanks for sticking around and joining us on a little (post) holiday home tour.  We hope you all enjoyed (or are still enjoying) the holiday season and wish you all a happy new year!