Merry and Bright–Getting the Decorations Up!

Library Mantel

In real life, I have a husband and kids and a very busy calendar (and a very messy kitchen), and so my Christmas decorations do not go up overnight.  Rather, it takes me about a week.  We were out of town for Thanksgiving, too, and so I feel like I came home already behind the eight ball.  So, room by room we are getting decked out for Christmas.

I had to start with my daughter’s room, mostly because she would have decorated herself if I hadn’t, and that would have been a mess!  We had a great time in there for a day, and then I moved on to the kitchen because I love my little kitchen tree the most of any of my trees.  I must admit here and now that the Ritz cracker can is an idea that I borrowed from my good friend Andrea.  All of the ornaments are kitchen/cooking related.

Kitchen Tree

Next, I did the wet bar.  I took down my mint julep cups from the shelf and put up my grandmother’s Santa mugs and little Santa nut cups (I think they’re nut cups, at least).  Thank you to my cousin, Stephanie, for sharing some of the mugs with me–they were the best Christmas present ever!  I didn’t do much else here besides add some evergreens and holly (I cut both from the backyard) and light some candles.  I think the old leaded glass window is a decoration in and of itself.

Wet bar

My grandmother’s Santa mugs:

Vintage decanters from my other grandmother and thrift shop silver tray:

After the kitchen and the wet bar were done, I moved into the library, and did the mantel there.  Our house has four fireplaces, so I’m going to need a few more ideas.

My goal for this Christmas was not to buy anything new, and to just use what I had, whether it was technically a Christmas decoration or not.  I did buy fresh poinsettias ($3.50 each at Wal-mart) and the letters to make the JOY banner ($5 at Hobby Lobby for the letters and the ribbon–I already had the spray paint and the glitter), but that’s it.  Everything else was already in the house and just got moved to the mantel.  I cut cypress greens from the backyard and magnolia leaves from the front.  I’m still tweaking it a bit, but here it is as of 8pm tonight!

All right, this means it’s time to move on to the next room tomorrow.  At this rate, I’ll just be getting done by Christmas!