11/29/2012

Decking the Halls

Okay, not gonna lie. It is not even December yet, and I am already super pumped for Christmas time. I don't think we've ever set up a tree prior to December starting, but I've been in the "spirit" if you will, so, I got started.

The mantle is one of my favorite places to decorate. Why?
1. Because we have a mantle.
2. It's the focal point of our living room.
3. We buy real greenery to put up there.
4. It's my chance to showcase some of the stuff I love.
5. Once decorated, it feels like an iSpy book where you have to look close to see all the treasures hidden up there.

So that's where we started. We took everything up there off so that we could see what we were working with. And since we only have one stocking (which is for the dog), I stuck it up there.


The greenery smells so good by the way. Even if we didn't have a tree, or for those of you in tiny apartments, get greenery and a wreath. Boom. Christmas.


Yesterday, David said, "you have no pictures of me on the blog. You look like a single lady with a dog." So note to self: add more pictures of wonderful husband and keep posting equal amounts of cute dog pics. Moving on, in terms of "keeping it real", after I cleared off the mantle, this is what the living room looked like. How awesome is that mirror btw? Salvation Army. $6. Real wood. Real Heavy. And how awesome are our plantation shutters? Ugh. Love it.




So, operation Style the Mantle began. (took greenery down to start...ended up putting it back up).



Yes, that is a picture of my parents cast into plaster. They did weird things in the 70's. I love it.


Matt, my brother in law and Davids womb-mate (twin) made us this amazing wood carving as a wedding gift. So pretty, right? He copied the font and stuff from our programs. I gotta put those up here some time--they were so great. (as were the save the dates--that had a photo strip with us holding up the words save-the-date-august 14, 2010).


I digress... (and added another David picture--you're welcome). See how I did that? So then we went to get a tree (yeah, it was like 9 pm), so we went up to the Pig (sorry, didn't shop local so to speak), picked a tall tree and stuck her in the car.



And then we brought it in and put it by our one window facing the front yard. Yeah, it wasn't gonna stay crooked like that. We decked it, we listened to Christmas music--mostly Mariah Carey and Nat King Cole, and Charlie Brown happened to be on TV. So all that was great. But then we realized with the furniture where it was, it was really visually "heavy" on that side of the room. We did a lot of furniture rearranging, and then we decided to move the tree. So I was a little sad that you can't see it from the front yard or the street unless our front door is opened. Oh well...it's better from the inside and isn't the tree for us, not the neighbors? The answer is yes.




So we moved it (and moved the table that was there) and sorry for the dark picture, but the tree placement is way better here. I'll try to get a brighter picture of it up soon, but it was after 10 by the time we were done. We had plans to start watching Homeland, but I guess we'll start that tonight (after pizza with dog park friends). Oh yeah, and we started a tradition of eating cookies while we decorated. It's not really a tradition since we were just like, "oooh, I want some mint milano's", so we ate some. But next year, wine and Milanos during Christmas decorating time. It'll be a tradition.


What tree decorating traditions do y'all have? This is only our second year at this, so we're newbies.

love ya, bean it <3



6 comments:

  1. 1. Thanks for (finally) posting pics of me!
    2. Yes, I had to stand on my tiptoes while on a bench to get the star on the top. I'm kinda short.
    3. Didn't shop local? Don't you know the Pig's slogan is "Local Since Forever"?!?!?
    4. Great post.

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  2. 1. You're welcome.
    2. Yes, you are.
    3. Oh yeah. But I'm not sure if that counts.
    4. Lymi.

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  3. 1. Thanks for posting my wood burning! (Not a wood carving...but no biggie.)
    2. Tree looks great, hope I get to see it.
    3. You guys should make s'mores and use an Andes mint to get the Christmas flava in it. And credit me when you tell people about it ;)
    4. Tree decorating traditions -- the pickle. I'mma win it this year. I'm rent me a backhoe and uproot dat tree. I wanna know where the pickle at. Give me the pickle, I want the pickle.

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  4. 1. No problem!
    2. C'mon over!
    3. No thanks.
    4. lol.

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  5. I love your living room, the rug and the coffee table are awesome! Nice styling on the mantle, so pretty!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks! The rug is actually upside down (my secret) because the white and black chevron was a little too much, but the grey blends better. Plus it is way easier to clean.

      The coffee table is amazing--it's huge and from West Elm! I felt like it would go well down the line if our furniture changes.

      Let me ask you: do you like blogger? I am thinking about hosting elsewhere...

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