Holiday Decorating

I had a lot of fun decorating this year. Not only is it my favorite holiday, but Ellie is loving it, too. I made a few changes to our two mantels this year. I added garland and other holiday accessories, including the DIY banner I mentioned previously to our gas fireplace. We decorated our tree last weekend and put up all the lights outside our house, which Ellie exclaims, "Woah!" every time we turn them on. Ellie loves taking evening walks looking for "more" lights and "more Ho-Ho's." She calls Santa "ho ho." She loves reading Santa books and listening to Christmas music. She fits right into our family!

I found the mercury glass trees and white tree at Home Goods, the berries were found at Michael's (I cut the stems to fit in the vase) and ornaments from Target. The mirror was also purchased months ago at Home Goods, but I hadn't yet found a home for it.

I am loving my DIY "Merry" Banner!

I added the snowflakes that came with a box of ornaments (below) to the mirror using white needle thread and taped them to the back of the mirror. This DIY project was recently mentioned in a post here.

I added faux snow and ornaments to this lantern (Home Goods)

I added some sparkle with a few star ornaments on our chandelier

Our second mantel (over our gas fireplace). The reindeer and sleigh (filled with pine cones) are a new addition. They were my Mom's and I loved them growing up. Ellie loves saying, "hi" to the reindeer every day.

The start of our holiday cards. I taped them to the staircase, as I did last year. I've seen lots of creative DIY projects- next year I'll try one for sure!

A free Christmas printable I found on Pinterest

Christmas 2011

The house ornament is one of our "World Ornaments" we received for our engagement. The hook fell off, but I added it to the mantel because it reminds me of our house. I thought it added sentiment to our mantel.

Our tree!