holiday home tour (part iv)

Today is the final day of my holiday home tour…the living room!

Let’s start with our Christmas tree, since it was the first decoration that went into the house.  We visited the tree farm the day after Thanksgiving to pick out the “perfect” tree!  This has become an annual tradition for our family, one which we love!

I know a lot of people decorate their trees using a theme or certain color combination, but we use an assortment of ornaments that our family has collected over the years…read more about that here and here.  Our new additions to the tree this year are ornaments from our spring break trip out west…the Grand Canyon and Route 66.  

And of course, I gave my daughters ornaments that symbolized something significant or special from 2016.

For Audrey, the college student…a Furman University ornament

For Grace, the new driver…a car ornament

For Claire, who started yoga…a little yogi ornament

The mantel is another favorite area for me to decorate for Christmas!  Of course, there are the stockings to hang…even ones for Lily and Cecilla (our dogs) and our newest addition, Snuggles (Claire’s hamster that was a birthday gift to her last month).  The mantle is adorned with garland, small berry sprigs, and white lights.  You might notice more of that red striped ribbon that I used in some other rooms in the house…this time it’s tied around my topiaries.

Above the mantle is a favorite memory of mine…a canvas print of our first Christmas as a family of five!  Claire was just two weeks old when it was taken!!

Placed on our coffee table is this long, white wood container that I filled with red, green, and gold ornaments.  I love the contrast of the birch handle and the shiny ornaments!

The magnet board in the corner is filled with pictures of my daughters with Santa over the years.  Some of those pictures seem just like yesterday…time goes by so quickly when you are raising a family.  I’m happy to have these memories of them!

You might have spied another tree in the background.

We have a second, smaller (Claire chose it this year) tree on our sunporch.  It is simply decorated with white lights, red ribbon, and the applesauce cinnamon ornaments (click here for the directions) that we make every year.

As you can see, we’ve had a bit of snow here in northwest Ohio!

Thank you so much for joining me all this week for the holiday home tour of my house!  I hope you enjoyed it, and perhaps left with some inspiration for your own Christmas decorating!