'Tis the season!
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For this household, it really is the most wonderful time of the year. We celebrate "Chrismukkah" (Christmas + Hanukkah), and I loved decorating our space! It's nice that during each holiday season, things just seem extra cozier, warmer, and, well, merrier.
It started with getting a new faux Christmas tree and taking out our ornaments from last year. As I described in my Fall & Halloween Decor post, I didn't have many decorations in the past. This year, I wanted to make things special, mainly because we spend so much time in our apartment. Our faux tree from last year was too small for our current space, so I purchased a 7.5 ft tree this year. I loved our bright colored ornaments, but these just weren't working with the rest of the decor. I found a new set that has more earthy and muted-toned ornaments, which gave our tree a touch of color and cozy neutral feeling.
As I'm sure you noticed in the tree photos, our tree is only half-dressed in ornaments. Using the sideboard as a measurement method for Mason's height, I purposely placed all of the ornaments from the table's height and up. I researched ways to toddler-proof a Christmas tree and came across some creative ideas: put a baby gate or decorative holiday fence around the tree, or put faux wrapped presents around the tree. I read that placing jingle bells along the bottom of the tree could be useful as a sound-signal when the little one is near/playing with the tree. I really liked this idea and found a jingle bell garland. I thoroughly inspected the garland, making sure the bells were tightly secured to the rope itself and that none of the bells had a wide opening for the ball to come out. I then wrapped this around the bottom half of the tree, which was also lovely to add a little color among the branches and green wired lights.
Ah, I'm obsessed with our sideboard, and I'm even more obsessed with decorating it. Considering our space and the taller Christmas tree, I wanted to keep the top of the table nice and clean. At first, I was looking at a lot of bottle-brush trees, which don't get me wrong, some of them are gorgeous, but some look like...well, a bottle brush. I came across these champagne tinsel trees, and I just knew they were exactly what I'd been seeking. I love that these come in different sizes! The"branches" are super thin, creating a maneuverable light-glitz look. It's full enough without looking stocky, so it worked for our space. I had a few vases that I placed along the back and filled the larger one with a faux pale green winter stem that came brushed lightly for a glistening frost. I put a couple of fake melting candles which came from my mom (thanks!). These items also conceal our Echo and one of our
routers, so that worked out well, too!
I kid you not, about a minute after purchasing the black "Mail Direct To The North Pole" mailbox, it sold out (but not to worry, I linked similar items at the end of this post). I love that this one opens at the bottom, so you can actually put notes inside and take them out - super cute for the kids! The menorah is from my mother-in-law (thanks!), as is the glass pendant and silver stand, which has our family name on it. I love the mix of silver and champagne colors for our tabletop. The hint of wintery pale green adds a slight touch of color, too!
We can't not have stockings! I got these for all of us, of course, including Harvey, last year for Mason's first Christmas. A little tip from my mom: if you don't do any stocking-stuffers (we don't), stuff the stockings using spare tissue paper or scrap wrapping paper to make your stockings look a little fuller! I used wrapping paper scraps for mine. Simple and easy! I used white small command hooks to hang our stockings as more holiday spirited wall decor for that once-empty corner. Our tree is not in the corner because the outlet for the lights is next to our AC/heating unit. And so, the tree is placed away from the corner, blocking Mason from the outlet.
At last, the window display. This was a fun little project because while our window space is relatively large, I know that I can only put big objects in the center space. Why? You guessed it - #toddlerlife. Mason can reach things on the windowsill, but he can't get past the AC/heating unit. So that marked off my space of where the main decorations would go. The window on the left opens inward, so I can't put anything higher than the opening anyway. I added our "Merry Chrismukkah" sign - this was a digital file I had made on vistaprint.com as canvas wall art. The left and right windowsills have objects that we already had in our apartment. The book on the left is the book-box that held my spooky-book look of potions from a past post. The picture frame on the right is a frame with the coordinates of my family's first home, where I spent the main chunk of my childhood.
I decided to put my thicker pre-lit garland along the bottom of the windowsill and a mistletoe garland along the top with white wired lights. The bottom garland works as a great space filler since I didn't want to have too many windowsill items. I added more of the fake melting candles, jumbo bells, and extra vases to "garnish" the garland. Having the sparse mistletoe garland along the top didn't weigh down our living space. Note: I used four garland pieces to create this look (each one is 5 ft long). It's a light touch, and the exposed bare branches remind me of illustrations from The Grinch (the 1966 short film). The lights add a warm twinkle of holiday glow.
The lanterns are from our wedding (unfortunately, discontinued). If you're wondering about the dimensions: 8"W x 24"H. Rather than putting candles inside, I actually remembered a holiday storefront display (oh, how I miss shopping in-person, mask-less and worry-free), of ornaments hanging from a clear string, looking as if they were floating around a Christmas tree. I decided to do something similar with the lanterns. I found these gold jumbo jingle bells and knew they'd be perfect for my lantern display. I tied a couple to each end of the clear string and hung them over a small command hook on the lanterns' inner-top peak. I added some fillers (white rocks- yes, from the same spooky-book look!), leftover bells, and a couple leftover white ornaments to finish off the whole lantern look.
And finally, the most colorful part of our home's holiday decor: the FA LA LA garland. I found these on Etsy! The pastel colors are beautiful and add a little whimsical mood to our living room. I contemplated hanging this across the middle of the window. Still, our shades are usually lowered the majority of the way down anyway, so I decided to hang it between the lanterns. I love the pom-poms at the ends, too!
