Christmas has arrived

I can't believe it's Christmas time already! My Christmas decor this year is similar to how it was last year, but I have made a few small changes that I thought you'd enjoy. In keeping with my simplistic style, I didn't go all out quite like I did last year, but the holiday spirit is still definitely present in our house! I thought I'd start by sharing with you guys our holiday living room.

If you'd like a recap on my holiday living room last year, click here. 

Now onto how it looks this year!

The biggest change in our holiday living room is the way I hung the garland on the stairs banisters. This year I went with the "swag" and I think it looks fancier this way :) 

 My little santa collection is displayed below the stairs :) 

I love the holiday season so much, and it is always so warm and welcoming to come into this room :) Have your trimmed your tree and decked your halls already?

Thanks,

Jesse

Thanksgiving Tablescape

I love hosting parties and dinners in our home, and Thanksgiving is one my absolute favorite events every year.  It's the one time of year both mine and my husband's families get together, and  its the true start of the holiday season.  Obviously having a wonderful meal planned is key to any successful Thanksgiving gathering, but it is of equal importance to me to have my home look the part! I just love a welcoming home during the holidays! For that reason, I put a lot of thought and care into designing my tablescape this year.  I decided to keep my tablescape simple for a couple of reasons. 

Reason #1: If the centerpieces are too tall, you can't see the people sitting across from you, which just isn't practical for conversation. Like so:

As gorgeous as both of these tables are, they are really only for show. How could you ever carry on a conversation with somebody sitting across from you?

Reason #2: If the centerpiece is too long or too bulky, that doesn't leave any room to set the food. For practicality purposes, there needs to be space to set the gravy boat, rolls, and salt & pepper shakers even if you serve the majority of your food buffet style.

While these centerpieces are unarguably gorgeous, who wants to have to walk to the kitchen every time somebody needs some butter for their roll? Not me.

Which brings me to our Thanksgiving tablescape. It's practical but in my opinion still special. 

I like to stick with unscented candles at the table so the smell doesn't compete with the smells from the food :) 

 

I'm in love with my new table runner that was a custom made gift :) So simple and beautiful any time of the year.

I created these silverware holders out of spare construction paper I had and glued the edges together using mod podge. I created the labels using picmonkey. Here's an even closer view:

For my centerpiece, I set my candelabra into the blue, wooden, rectangular box I had and filled it with faux leaves and pine cones from my yard.  It's both compact and beautiful.  If you don't have a box like my wooden one, you could always wrap a shoe box in pretty wrapping paper and fill it with candles, pine cones, leaves or other pretty items.  Not only is it pretty, but it keeps the centerpiece small, leaving plenty of room for the food!

How are your Thanksgiving plans coming along? Can you believe its only a week and a half away?!

Thanks for stopping by!

Jesse

On the 12th day of Christmas...

.. my true love gave to me, a dining room with a Christmas table scape! 

Merry Christmas eve!! I hope you have all enjoyed my "12 Days of Christmas" series. To wrap it all up, I thought you might like to see our Christmas dining room.

Our dining room is tiny cozy. I constantly see beautiful buffets and hutches that I so desperately want to buy, but unfortunately, I just don't have anymore room for furniture. Whomp whomp.

I decided a simple and clean table scape would be the best option for this space. I wanted it to be fresh and festive, but not too busy. Since it's not a huge room, I was afraid that too much stuff would just make it feel smaller. Here's what I came up with, I hope you enjoy:

 

I hope you have enjoyed my "12 Days of Christmas" blog series and I wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas and a happy new year! 

Jesse

On the 11th day of Christmas...

...my true love gave to me, Christmas in the kitchen!

Christmas is only two days away! Yay!

I shared with you guys how Christmas has taken over my mantle, loft space, living room, master bedroom, porch and friend's house. So why not also share with you our Christmas kitchen? Take a look around and enjoy!

The breakfast table is festooned with festive Santa hats.

 I really love my Spode Christmas dishes.

Moving along to our bar area, a creative winter vignette has made itself at home inside one of my cake stands... 

...And some of my Christmas Spode dishes are on display.

I love incorporating food related items (like my dishes and cake stand) into my Christmas kitchen decor. 
Moving to another corner of our kitchen, you'll find wintery pine cones and tree branches nestled in a glass jar...

 Along with a "joyful" lamp...

Our Scentsy makes our kitchen smell like freshly baked cookies all season long. 

 

 And this little corner is home to an owl cookie jar and a WONDERFUL smelling candle.

Christmas cards from our loved ones are taking over the fridge...

and Mrs. Claus has set up shop in here as well.

As always, thank you for stopping by. I hope you find yourself surrounded by family and friends this week. And don't forget to have yourself a merry little Christmas :)

Love,

Jesse 

On the 10th Day of Christmas...

...my true love gave to me, a Christmas porch!

I may be going at this a little backwards. I probably should have shown you our Christmas porch on the first day, since it's the first thing you see when you arrive at our house. Oh well. Anyway, welcome to our Christmas porch!

I decided to keep things simple and welcoming on our porch this holiday season. 

I'm about to go off track a little bit, but I want to give you guys the back story about this tree because it just makes me so happy. Not only do I love the way this tree looks on our porch, but it has sentimental value too. This tree was a house warming gift to us from my mom on the day we bought our house/got engaged. Reid and I had JUST walked in the door and gotten engaged maybe 15 minutes earlier, and we were sitting on the stairs (no furniture to sit on yet), holding hands and dreaming about our new life together, when we saw my mom scurrying around on the front porch like a little Christmas elf, setting this tree up for us, with a huge grin on her face. She didn't knock on the door or let us know she was coming because she didn't want to interrupt (she knew Reid was going to propose at any minute, but didn't know it was already a done deal!) She then headed back to her car to leave so we walked outside to ask her what the heck she was doing. She seemed genuinely surprised to have been caught (although we didn't have any curtains up on any of the windows, seeing as we had just moved in, so it wasn't exactly hard to see her out there). I showed her my ring (which of course she had seen several weeks previously when Reid first bought it), we hugged and laughed and then she came inside to see the house. After that my phone started to blow up as word spread to our friends and family that Reid had asked me, I'd said yes, and the big secret was no longer a secret. The rest of the day was a blur of pure joy as friends and family stopped by to see the house and share in our joy at our engagement.

SIDE NOTE: That evening my brother and Reid decided they should light the fire since it was chilly out and we were having our first unofficial house party.  Because they are sooo smart, they didn't open the floo before lighting the fire, and we nearly burned the entire place down right then and there.  That would have been quite a sad ending to an otherwise lovely day.

So, in a nut shell, this tree brings back memories of what is probably one of the happiest days of my life :) Moving along...

 I found this adorable little guy at a garage sale for $1. Score!

And this wreath was a Home Goods find from last year. Thank you for taking the time to tour our Christmas porch! 

Merry Christmas!

Jesse