Christmas Home Decor 2018

[ronandannette]

All the photos are lovely.

Each year I’m putting up less and less Christmas decor. It’s getting to be too much work in my old age. My library has a decor exchange in early December and I give some away every year. Hopefully someone finds a good use for my discards. It’s all still good stuff, no junk.

I never decorate before December starts. It probably won’t be until the weekend of the 8th and 9th this year.

The 9th it is for me too - that’s the only weekend between now and Christmas I don’t have a ton of other stuff going on. And that will be after I dig the frozen pumpkins and other various harvest decor out of the snow to put away so it can be replaced with Christmas.

I’m with @disykat in terms of how much I put up. A tree, garland on the banister and mantle, table decor and small touches throughout but too much is overwhelming in my small space. We enjoy it immensely but I always marvel how much roomier and more tidy everything feels in January when Christmas gets taken down.

 

[QueenIsabella]

If we didn't do it Thanksgiving weekend, it wouldn't happen. There's just too much going on--mostly Nutcracker (2 kids dance, I sew costumes, sometimes DH gets roped into moving sets...). But there's also a couple strings concerts--at different venues on different days, naturally, because God forbid my kids be in the same orchestra. And, of course, I have all the other stuff going on--shopping, baking, making gifts, and so forth.

Klayfish--your decorations are impressive. I think if we did something like that, we'd be asked to leave the neighborhood. No HOA or anything, but it's an older, very quiet neighborhood--we have the only kids, and I already fear that we're "that obnoxious family". Everyone else has lived here 30+ years, and are the "wreath on the door" kind of people. Nicest people you could meet, to be sure, though.

 

[wenrob]

View attachment 366820 View attachment 366793 View attachment 366792 Everyone’s Christmas decor is so beautiful. Due to 3 moves and downsizing we have a tiny apt space so I opted for a 7’5” unlit pencil tree 2 years ago. I love it so much. Plus after 15 years of multicolored themed Christmases decided to go back to traditional colors. Kept our keepsake ornaments. It’s a little bare right now as we’ve been rebuilding decor and ornaments over the past 2 years. The teens picked the family stockings. DS (15) helped me decorate the tree and put up the snowflake and snow window clings.

LOVE the stockings. Tell the teens they did good.

I definitely will, but it may be Wed before I get time. We did a "test run" of the outside show last night. Have a few kinks to work out but looks good as a whole. Here is a picture of one section outside of our house from 2015 or 2016...this year looks fairly similar. It's hard to capture all the lights on at once, because many of them are blinking off and on to the music, so they're rarely all on at once. Here are also a few pictures of the storage room in my basement where we keep a lot of our Xmas stuff. This isn't all of it, we have other stuff kept in a big area under the basement stairs. One stack is Halloween stuff and there are a few Easter things, but everything else is Xmas stuff.....

View attachment 366990 View attachment 366991 View attachment 366992

Do you have a camera with manual settings? If you do you can put it on a tripod (or other steady surface) and use a slow shutter speed. With a little trial and error you should be able to capture an image or two with all the lights on at once. There’s a ton of tutorials on the web this time of year that can walk you through it.

We have to get through my kids birthday (the 30th) first before decorating. Probably will start the weekend of the 8th-9th. I’m changing up the tree a little bit this year and would like to replace some ancient decor but that will cause a rebellion with the kids big and small. They like tradition and nothing changed.

 

[Klayfish]

Do you have a camera with manual settings? If you do you can put it on a tripod (or other steady surface) and use a slow shutter speed. With a little trial and error you should be able to capture an image or two with all the lights on at once. There’s a ton of tutorials on the web this time of year that can walk you through it.

No, unfortunately not. I don't even think I own a camera beyond the one on my ancient, low tech cell phone. Thankfully, there are a few songs where I know I flash all the lights at once for a second or two, so I try to capture it when those songs come around. I have the basics of the show done and ready to run, but still want to add more non-dancing stuff over the next few days if I have time.

I'm in an HOA community, but thankfully they're supportive of doing this...in fact they do an annual display contest (we never enter).

 

[jrmasm]

If we didn't do it Thanksgiving weekend, it wouldn't happen. There's just too much going on--mostly Nutcracker (2 kids dance, I sew costumes, sometimes DH gets roped into moving sets...). But there's also a couple strings concerts--at different venues on different days, naturally, because God forbid my kids be in the same orchestra. And, of course, I have all the other stuff going on--shopping, baking, making gifts, and so forth.

Klayfish--your decorations are impressive. I think if we did something like that, we'd be asked to leave the neighborhood. No HOA or anything, but it's an older, very quiet neighborhood--we have the only kids, and I already fear that we're "that obnoxious family". Everyone else has lived here 30+ years, and are the "wreath on the door" kind of people. Nicest people you could meet, to be sure, though.

That's exactly my life as well.

 

[mamamary]

I don't have any pics to put up yet as I still have a lot more to do but I am ahead of where I usually am at this point. I feel I'm putting up less and less every year also as both kids are away at college. I still want it to look nice when they get home. My tree is up already and while the kids were home for Thanksgiving I got a little help from them. My husband wouldn't care if we didn't decorate at all - scrooge. He got frustrated with the tree but was glad when his ornament was on it. He thought I'd punish him and leave his name off!

 

[luvflorida]

I love seeing everyone's decorations!

suger mag- I love your pointe shoe wreath!

PollyannaMom- Your tree is beautiful!

 

[Suger Mag]

I love the toys hanging from the stairs. Where did you get those?

those were a tag sale/auction find that my dad gave me, they originally were a CVS Island of Misfit Toys series from the Rudolf classic... i think te toys dated 1998. I have seen variations since at stores that often sell comics/games. I love that movie.. the bumble is my favorite, although the misfit toys always pulled my heart strings.

 

[Hikergirl]

I'm loving everyone's decorations!
@xlsm I really am in love with your mantle and hearth. Do you use real evergreens?

@Klayfish you trying to give the Griswolds a run for their money
Looks great, love the lights on the lawn.

We got our tree up yesterday and I finished the outside today.
The rest of the house will be done tomorrow. I hope.

 

[CampbellzSoup]

We’re doing color lights I won!

 

[J'aime Paris]

This is almost half of our living room. But wanted to get Barney, aka adorable dog, in the picture.

 

[LovesTimone]

Wow everything looks amazing...

I am going to put our decoration up tomorrow... So I will post pictures then... If I can figure out how to...

 

[Klayfish]

We’re doing color lights I won!

Love the Santa hat as the tree topper and the train below. I'm just trying to figure out what the Wheel of Fortune puzzle is.

 

[ahutton]

OMG that's my dining room table too!!

 

[wenrob]

Wow everything looks amazing...

I am going to put our decoration up tomorrow... So I will post pictures then... If I can figure out how to...

When you reply to the thread there should be a button near the bottom that says “upload a file,” from there it will ask you where to get the file from. Before doing this put the photo somewhere easy for you to remember like your desktop. If you don’t get “upload a file” option (I sometimes don’t) click “more options” and it should be there. Hope this helps.

 

[amberpi]

I haven't decorated in years, but with the kids, we will after we celebrate DH's bday this weekend. I did get the monogrammed stockings, and will have a tree and a wreath, but that's as much as I can aside from lots of poinsettas! I keep flowers in the house and the poinsettas are beautiful, cheap, and I don't have to spend time fussing to arrange them.

My mom goes all out. Every surface, wall, banister, etc. is decorated. It gives me a ton of anxiety to be over there with that much clutter. I know I'm a Grinch, but lord, it's just so cluttered. The bed linens and shower curtains aren't safe. How I grew up in that home and became such a minimalist is something no one can figure out.

ETA: as I look at this mound of presents to wrap I realize the house will be totally decorated with heaps of gifts, maybe that's why people with kids have so many trees.

 

[Floridaman999]

I'm going all out this year.

 

[xlsm]

I'm loving everyone's decorations!
@xlsm I really am in love with your mantle and hearth. Do you use real evergreens?

Thank you! That's from last year, and yes it was fresh greenery...that proceeded to turn brown and crumble everywhere two weeks later, LOL!! I replaced it with fake greenery I'd had from past years, but WOW it was a pain and a mess to remove and re-do. This year I bought the fresh greenery at the nursery where we get our trees and it was pre-soaked in an anti-transpirant, and then I sprayed more on it when we got it home. I only have it up on the mantle so far this year, haven't done anything with the hearth yet still...I'm waiting to see if it suffers the same fate as last year, or if it stays nice.

Here's what it looks like so far this year:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/89161658@N04/

I put it up on Saturday, fingers crossed it stays pretty! I'm ready to finish the rest of the fireplace

OMG that's my dining room table too!!

Shoutout to World Market, lol!! We have only ever used this table a handful of times...I think it's so pretty but the grooves on the top collect crumbs and holiday glitter. I have to use the canned air stuff to clean it out

 

[jdb in AZ]

The White House.

 

[jdb in AZ]

I'm going all out this year.

View attachment 367167

A friend did something similar with a shot-gun shell casing. He called it a cartridge in a bare tree.