Holiday Decorations

Our Christmas tree, with red, green, silver and black ornaments. It’s just under 6 feet tall and it’s starting to get pretty old and shabby. To fill in the gaps left by missing branches and make it look fuller, after I put on the mini lights (200 on white cord, I think white corded lights are essential for white trees) I wrapped 100 feet of white garland around it. Tree skirts aren’t suitable in my house (too much pet hair!) so instead I stood the tree inside a green nesting cube placed on its side. The ends of the lights and their power strip are tucked inside the cube as well.

I left the tree plain with just lights and garlands for a week so that the daycare kids wouldn’t bug out when they saw the ornaments and tear the whole thing down. It seems like every year there is a different toddler here experiencing their first mobile Christmas and you never know how they are going to react yo a decorated tree! Luckily I’ve never had any kids do anything worse than take off a couple ornaments, and all the ones near the bottom of the tree are pretty indestructible. Taylor, Symphony and I decorated it last Friday night, and as usually I was hoping it would be a fun family event but in reality it was kind of a drag. It’s mostly my fault- everyone knows that after they put anything on it I’ll end up rearranging the whole thing myself later. I can’t help it- I’m a Christmas tree control freak!

Every year I buy a few more ornaments, and this year they were mostly silver, including this super-sparkly deer, great big diamond and 4 of these glittery birds.

Usually I put tons of lights in all the windows, but this year I didn’t want to deal with the child-safety issues and constant plugging and unplugging every day. Instead, I decorated my light fixtures!

In the living room I tied red and green balls onto the track light with white curling ribbon- I didn’t want to use ornament hooks because I was worried they might touch the metal track and burn my house down or something. The green balls are some of the most delicate ones I own and last year I barely used any of them, so it was nice to find a place for them this year.

In the dining room and kitchen I used the blue ornaments that I used to put on the tree when my ex and I were together (Taylor and I spent our first Christmas together in 2007 and we bought all new ornaments in the red and green colour scheme). They’ve been sitting unloved in boxes for three years and I’m happy I could use them.

The rope light chandelier in the dining room (I posted a sneak peek last week) has some of my favorite ornaments on it including the second most ridiculously oversized ball I own, blue and silver glitter icicles and these “blobsicles”

The kitchen light. I also wrapped blue and silver star garland around this and hung the most ridiculously oversized ball (it’s the size of a honeydew melon, no exaggeration) over the island where it wouldn’t bonk anyone in the head.

I’m not religious at all but we always had a nativity scene at Christmas when I was little- my mom handmade all the little figures and animals out of felt and faux fur and embroidered tons of detail into them and I always loved it. I bought my own Playmobil nativity scene on post-Christmas super clearance at Urban Outfitters last year for $9.50 so this is the first year it’s being displayed. It found a home in the “library” on top of my ugly old piano, well out of reach of little children, and accessorized with some multi-coloured mini lights.

I might put up more decorations after I’m finished work for the year (one more week!) and don’t have to worry about the little kids anymore. I have a lot of unused lights, and Symphony has her own mini-tree for her room. We were going to put up on Wednesday but unfortunately she was overtired and had a meltdown instead. It’s lilac and has pink, purple and Disney princess-themed ornaments, and a silver glitter snowflake for the top. So cute!