We Now Have an After

Even though they are pretty at others' houses, I don't do theme trees.

We finally have an “after”. (We’ve had it for a while now, but I neglected to post about it.) We planned to take two days to “do” our Christmas tree; it actually was more like a week, and took three sessions of working on it. Day one: Pick it out, bring it home, get it in the stand. Day two: Get the lights on. Day three: Get the ornaments on. Here’s the miraculous part of doing it this way: NO FIGHTING. I don’t know about you, but we’ve never done a tree before without at least a dirty look, but more often than not a tense word (or twelve).

I’ve done more Christmas decorating this year than ever before. Other than having a tree and making our own wreaths, growing up my mom never decorated our house for Christmas, and certainly not for any other holidays, so I didn’t really have a model for it. (Her mother was an immigrant, so she didn't have a model either.) Additionally, theme decorating is not really my style either in my regular décor or seasonal décor.

However, in the last six years, I’ve lost both of my paternal grandparents, my maternal grandmother, and my dad so I’ve inherited a lot of stuff, particularly from my paternal grandparents who lived through the Depression and never threw anything away. I got lots of little figurines and decorations my grandma made, and I can’t bear to part with them. So I’ve decided just to go with it and use them to decorate this year.

Other than the tree, I haven’t bought any decorations this year except a $4 poinsettia from the grocery store and $2 worth of candy canes for the tree. I’ve stayed true to my style by containing the decorations in our open concept living/dining area. None of the rest of the apartment is decorated.

Without further ado, here's what our decorations look like.

You've seen these wreaths before, but I finally decided to hang them in front of our windows. It works.

These little figurines are actually bells. They sit on a shelf in front of ceremic decanters made by my grandfather and steins he and Chuk collected from around the world.


More figurines from my paternal grandparents, lying on a shelf in front of a photo of my maternal grandparents on their 60th wedding anniversary.


I blatently stole this candle in snow idea from Melissa at the Inspired Room.




I used Scrabble tiles to write holiday words and phrases.


We're currently using our gingerbread houses as our table decoration with a grocery store poinsettia stuck in a green striped pot I already had. Our table decorations rotate though.


My paternal grandmother was an avid crocheter. She made the large angel and I paired it with a vintage angel that also came from her house.

I'm linking to the holiday tour of homes at The Nesting Place, AE Filkins and The Inspired Room.