Our Christmas Decorations, 2020

(Updated as new remaining items arrive, and will repost once all items have arrived  ;)

Well, I'm still waiting on a few items I ordered weeks ago that are apparently arriving late (some throw pillows), but I'll share what I have thus far to bring some Christmas cheer, and then add photos when the last pillows arrive and the gifts; will that work?  I guess it will have to :)

Until then, welcome to our humble abode for Christmas, this year, I did some extra little house tweaks for comfort, since we're both spending so much time indoors :) 

First up, the living room ... any greenery you see with decorations, they were added by me, to real and artificial pine and cedar mix.  I'm clearly not a professional, but it's fun to do :)

(Keep in mind, these are all just quick cell phone shots, due to lack of time between a busy season with work and crafting.)  

The finished fireplace ... 

 

The stockings will wait until Christmas eve, this year, so another picture I'll add later ;)

My birthday was also this past week, so I took a little picture of Mark's card and cake, with the fireplace as a nice backdrop :)

It was caramel icing - because even though I'm not a big sweets fan, especially cake or pie, he knows I'm a caramel junkie, caramel is my chocolate - so he gets caramel icing so I'll eat the cake lol. 

 

... and with the lights ... 

Funny story about those lights, we didn't realize they were on an automatic timer, based on when you first turned them on.  So when they turned on by themselves at the exact same time we originally turned them on, we were like - "God?  Ghost?" lol.   Just kidding, we immediately realized there was an timer component we weren't aware of until then lol. 

And of course, the tree, which is in a new spot, this year  ... 

I'm not crazy about the ribbon garland, this year, but the tree itself was the perfect size and shape :) 

These next photos were taken before I fixed the ribbon to look less droopy lol ...

Regardless, Brookie loves to lay in front of it ...

Believe it or not, we just self-cleaned the carpet just before Thanksgiving, with a carpet cleaner we rented from Lowe's, but c'est la vie, that's life with dogs.  Clearly, the professionals do a better job, but that can only happen after COVID ;)

But her favorite spot, of course, is between Mark and me on the sofa while working on our portable desks and laptops ...

About those tobacco baskets behind the sofa that I'm not 100% happy with the placement of?

So the deal is, I bought this giant pine cone and some real holly branches at Hillenmeyer's Christmas Shoppe (Tates Creek) -  and then I wasn't sure what to do with them lol. They were too much/too busy looking for our small mantel.  

However, because Hillenmeyer's stuff is so expensive, I felt like I needed to use them somewhere, so I decided to add them to my tobacco baskets and hang them over the sofa during Christmas.

Not sure if you all noticed, but the cost of trees went up 25% this year everywhere.  At Hillenmeyer's, even a small tree costs $150, so we bought the actual tree elsewhere, which was actually a bigger and better tree, for $50 bucks less!

After taking the above photo, my little 12x12 burlap pillows with vintage French Christmas ads arrived for the bed.  However,  I decided they were too much, on the bed, and I liked what I already had (see below bedroom photos).

Thus, like the giant pine cone and holly, I wasn't sure what to do with them; so I decided to fill the other two tobacco baskets with burlap pillows covers within the inserts - what do you think?

 

 My snowflake pillows finally arrived - forgive our worn dog and people-worn sofa (that's another post-COVID purchase) - also had to scoot it a little bit further to the right to accommodate the full tree ;)

I thought they were going to be bigger and the mix may be too much, so how about this? 

Hmm, not sure if I dig either, but I'll figure it out before the final post  :)

This year, I decided to add a little bright spot to the kitchen ...

Plus a little garland over a door ... 

And just a couple of accents to the bedroom.  I never buy too much or too expensive for the bed, because we allow our dogs to sleep on (and virtually destroy it lol) - but this still looks fairly indestructible, but still Christmas cozy, right?   

Dog-trodden and worn, but cozy :) 

Our "memorial" chest  - I just placed an old artificial wreath that I added more pine cones and berries to, which sits behind Snuggy and Blade :)

And lastly, the outside  ... 

Front door (in this case, I only added the reindeer and jingle bells)  ... 

And our balcony during the day ...

And then at night ... 

And that's our Christmas decor, this year -  still awaiting a few sofa pillows, stockings, and gifts wrapped under the tree, which I'll add later.

I hope you enjoyed them and they brought you a little Christmas cheer, this year?

(If not, I use these to decide what I liked and didn't like from the year before lol ;)