‘Tis the Season…

Now that Thanksgiving is officially over I can start decorating for Christmas.  I’m a  true believer in celebrating the season we’re in and not the one coming up which is why I wait until after Thanksgiving to decorate.  Saturday was a warm 70 degrees…perfect for pulling out all that holiday paraphernalia.  It took some serious searching to find all the boxes, but after a few trips to the basement and a trip to the outside shed, I had all 4 boxes located.

A little fluffing of the artificial greenery and bows and I was good to go!  It’s been the same theme outside for about 4 years now, so putting everything up has become somewhat routine.  It took about an hour total, not too shabby!

I decided not to make any new bows this year, although I had anticipated doing so last February, Ha!

You can sort of see our proudly hung UK flag in the reflection of the door above, which I love!  (you can also see our neighbors car.  She decided to leave it parked in front of our house for 5 days while she had company…they live about 2 houses down, can we say rude?!  park in front of your own house!)

Last year we had no place to put the Christmas tree so I took the bottom piece and top piece of our 3 piece tree and created a make-shift small tree with a little duct tape.  If fit perfectly on the fireplace hearth between the foyer and living room.  We really enjoyed seeing the tree in this space, so I decided to do the same thing again this year even though we have space for a full tree now.  It’s out of the way and in the center of our home!

Do you see the embroidered “The Bauer’s” on the tree skirt?  This is one of my favorite holiday things.  It is a very delicate vintage tree skirt given to me by Ryan’s mother’s about 5 years ago.  I’m not sure why I like it so much, I just dig the old-school vibe.  Two of my favorite tree ornaments are ones that resemble our pups.  I couldn’t help but to take a close-up.

I also really love this flower ornament my mother gave me when I was in college.  The lady bug is my sorority mascot, so this also has some special meaning.  Unfortunately, while I was unwrapping it this year part of the flower broke off…I was just about in tears.

The mantle is nothing to crow about right now.  I assume later when I’m ‘in the groove’ I’ll put up some garland and tiffany blue  balls, etc…yep, one of these days before Christmas.  I have been on the search for new stockings that I can embroider for about 3 years now, but everything on the market is just so darn ugly.  I had plans to pull out the sewing machine and make my own from ideas I pinned on Pinterest, but we’ll see if I actually get around to it.  In the mean time, these hand-me-downs from Ryan’s mom work just fine, I guess.

Needless to say there hasn’t been any more progress on the kitchen.  Ryan stopped at Home Depot on his way home from work last night for the fascia…I predict this will be a Tuesday night project, we shall see!

And because it wouldn’t be the Christmas season without Clark Griswold….