Decorating for Christmas is one of my favorite things. As a kid, my mom would blast Christmas music ranging from the classic Peanuts, to Garth Brooks Christmas as we took out all of the decorations and put together our tree. One year, I even dragged our tree up from the basement (much too early) and put it together myself when my mom was outside working on the yard.

As I’ve gotten older, I try to wait until after Thanksgiving to decorate (although, with the cooler weather this year, it was really hard!), but I always put everything up Thanksgiving weekend. Wether it’s Thanksgiving night, or Sunday afternoon when we get home from all of our family gatherings.

Since we don’t own a house just yet, I’ve tried to stay away from buying expensive decor that might not transition to whatever style home we end up buying. But, I still love putting up our tree and using some family trinkets to decorate our home for the season.

Our Tree

I absolutely LOVE colorful Christmas trees. But, in our first apartment, I tried to get fancy and did a “matching” tree with all silver ornaments. I’ve aways loved the look of matching trees (still do) but in my own home it felt like I was walking through a department store and not snuggled up at home. So now I stick to my traditional colorful tree with classic white lights.

We currently have a little 5 foot, pre-lit tree (handed down by my grandma), that we decorate with an assortment of ornaments. I love buying ornaments whenever we travel to a new place. I feel like it adds memories and stories to our tree. We have ornaments from Dublin, Copenhagen, Iceland, Nashville, the list goes on! And each has it’s own individual story or meaning behind it. I love putting them on our tree each year and reminiscing with Brian. In addition to the ornaments we’ve bought throughout the years, I love filling in our tree with vintage ornaments from our families. The more colorful the better!

Around The House

Like I said, I’m try to limit the amount of holiday decor until we buy our first house (hopefully soon!). Because of this, we don’t have too many things to fill our little one-bedroom. I’ve bought some things, like festive throw pillows and napkins, but most of our trinkets have been handed down from family. And, while I can’t wait to have a home to fill with twinkle lights and garland, I love the assortment of family treasures that we have now. It just makes putting everything up feel so special and homey.

Holiday Cards

I’ve always loved sending and receiving Christmas cards. I remember sitting with my mom while she filled our envelopes every year and going through all of the cards we received in the basket we kept on our coffee table.

Now, I still love sending out cards to family and friends, but instead of putting the ones we receive in a basket, I use them as decor! I tape our cards to a doorway in-between our kitchen and dining room. That way, I can see them every day and they add some festive color to our home.

How do you like to decorate your home? Winter wonderland? Santa’s village? Classic silver and gold Christmas?