Cozy and Bright Christmas Décor

Christmas may be over but I always like to keep my decorations up for a few weeks afterwards. The twelve days of Christmas start on December 25 and run through January 5, so it just makes sense to me to leave my decorations up through then anyway. I start decorating after Thanksgiving, and this year I finished decorating pretty late (mid-December), so I’m not tired of looking at my Christmas décor yet. I usually start taking my decorations down in mid-January, beginning with the tree, with the goal of getting everything put away by the end of January.

I love this week between Christmas and New Years, when I get to relax and am at home to enjoy all my decorations. This year I put out fewer decorations than I normally do. I only added a few things to the bathroom, kitchen and dining room; normally these rooms are fully decorated. I concentrated all my efforts on the living room when I saw I was running out of time to get it all done! Hopefully next year I can get more of my décor out. I would especially like to put out all my gingerbread decorations in my kitchen like I normally do. But at least I did make a gingerbread house for the kitchen this year.

My Christmas Tree

The tree is the centerpiece of my décor, and what I spend the most time on. Usually I work on it part of the day for four days in a row before I finish it all (one day to shop for it, get it situated in the stand, and start on the lights; a second day to finish the lights and get the ornament boxes out; and a third and fourth day to decorate the tree with ornaments). Each year I get a real Christmas tree, because my cat Flurry chews the branches of artificial trees. When she was a young cat, she did okay with artificial trees, but then she developed an obsession with fake greenery and made herself so sick eating the tree one year that she stopped eating for a week. I’ve bought a real tree ever since. Real trees can be a lot of drama, and last year’s was the worst, as it turned out to be infested with aphids. I almost didn’t get a real tree this year after that experience, but decided to get a tree from somewhere new this year instead of Lowe’s, as my cousin also got an infested tree there. I went to the Boy Scout troop lot in Fishers, and got my prettiest tree yet! It’s my first Balsam Fir and it’s been a dream tree, so beautiful, fresh and perfectly shaped. I love to put a lot of lights on my tree so that it glows, and use seven strands of lights, totaling 1050 bulbs. I switched to LED lights a few years ago because they are safer and last longer. My tree is decorated with a variety of all my favorite ornaments. I collect Hallmark ornaments and anything else I love, such as elves, gnomes, owls, reindeer, retro looking ornaments, and handmade ornaments. The tree skirt is new this year. It’s white faux fur with decorative pom pom snowball trim. I bought it for Flurry since it’s so soft and warm and matches her fur perfectly. She loves laying under the tree! I probably have over a hundred photos of her under the tree this year.

Mantel & Fireplace

Each year I decorate my mantel with fresh greenery from the Old World Christmas Village & Market and lighted JOY letters that were a gift from my mom a few years ago that she got at Kohl’s. I usually add the twinkling snowflake lights to my mantel, although last year I left them off because the greenery was just absolutely perfect and I didn’t want to detract from it. The basket of red and white ornaments at the base of my fireplace is also a yearly staple. New this year are the small bottlebrush trees next to the JOY letters, two of which light up that I found at Meijer, and the others are from Michael’s. The lantern display at the base of the fireplace is new this year, as are the fireplace tools from my parents. The two solid red lanterns I’ve had for several years and have used them by my fireplace before. The snowflake patterned lanterns are usually outside on my porch. They’ve held up really well for being used outside. I bought them at Home Depot a few years ago from the Martha Stewart collection. The large black lanterns were a gift from my cousin Kim and her family last year and I absolutely love them. The flickering LED candles inside the lanterns are different sizes and brands but all of them have a timer feature I used this year so I don’t have to turn them on and off. They all come on at dusk and I’ve enjoyed them immensely these past few weeks.

Ceramic Trees and End Table Displays

I love the hand-painted ceramic Christmas trees that were popular in the 1970s and 80s when I was a kid. My two trees aren’t old or handmade, but have that same nostalgic look to them. The green tree has individual removable colored plastic bulbs that sit in the openings in the tree and are illuminated by the bulb at the base of the tree. The white tree has a removable star and fixed bulbs that are also lit by a bulb at the base of the tree. I put the white tree on an end table with other white décor and the colorful tree near the front door where I can look at it while I watch TV. A vintage elf and deer, and retro-looking elf salt and pepper shakers sit at the base of the tree. The white-themed end table display includes some old angel figurines, bottlebrush trees from Germany I wrapped LED lights around, and paper winter animals and trees that fold flat from Hallmark. My other end table contains a vintage snowman pitcher, deer from Target my mom gave me this year, and my elf figurines from the Heart of Christmas collection. The Santa box and NOEL trees are from Tuesday Morning. I got the idea to stack books for my display this year from a Christmas catalog.

Coffee Table

I’ve had basically the same silver and white lighted coffee table display for the last few years, changing it up a little each year by adding or removing pieces. This year I added two silver tree clusters that I found in my closet and don’t remember buying, but I’m glad I did. In fact I wish I had more of them, to display between the silver glitter buildings from West Elm. The buildings each have room underneath for a LED tealight candle, and this year I used narrow candles that are three inches high so they illuminate all of the windows of the tall buildings. The four tall illuminated Mercury Glass trees are my favorite items on the table; they were a gift from my cousin Kim and her family one year. The MERRY blocks are from Hallmark. There are various glitter house ornaments I removed the hangers from and a pretty half circle lighted village I found at a local gift shop called A Corner Cottage.

Window Ledge

My living room window ledge is a good place to display my Department 56 Snow Village collection, a set of inexpensive silver and blue ornaments and houses, or winter animals. I’ve changed it up from year to year between these three sets of decorations, but this year I repeated my winter animal theme from last year. The banner is from a craft show and goes with the silver and blue ornament and house theme, but also works well with the animals, which I got at Michaels a few years ago. The poor deer has two broken legs which his fur covers. I need to glue him back together. I wrapped LED light glimmer strings around the snowy trees, one string for each set of two trees. I added a strand of star lights from Target and a felt snowflake banner at the base of the animals. In the past I’ve sprinkled chunky crystal glitter on the ledge to give it added sparkle, but there is already so much glitter flying around my house (and into my eye at the beginning of the season, which made for a painful several days!), that I decided to skip it this year.

Wall Ledge

Red and white is one of my favorite Christmas color combinations, so I used this color scheme to decorate my ledge. My Elf on the Shelf always perches on my ledge each December along with the Merry Christmas sign and JOY blocks. I like joy-themed Christmas decorations since Joy is my middle name. The retro looking ceramic elf is new this year from Michael’s. The items on my ledge are some of my favorites, especially the llama, deer and polar bear. I strung a small felt snowflake garland from my friend Megan across the ledge to break up the brown surface.

My Other Decor

I absolutely love my Hallmark shadow box memory tree display for miniature ornaments I’ve had since 2004. It’s been fun to add Hallmark miniature ornaments to it throughout the years and rearrange the ornaments on it from year to year. My little tree display is full so I bought a different mini tree display they sold last year, but the quality is not as nice as this one. Another item on my wall for Christmas is a light-up picture of winter animals in a sleigh that I have above my TV. The white lights twinkle and dance. On my TV stand I have a little white fold-out building scene I got at the Target dollar spot.

I hope you enjoyed this tour of my Christmas 2018 décor! What is your favorite part of decorating for Christmas? When do you typically take down your decorations? Let me know in the comments below!