Hello from a blizzard-filled December 23, 2020. The kids are watching a Christmas movie & I decided to sit in on the show. I’m uploading photos to this post while Mickey Mouse chimes in the background. Today, the weather is awful, but this week has been lovely overall. Every year John’s Christmas wish is the same — he hopes for a “brown” Christmas.

It almost came true this year. But, not quite!

This house has been quite tricky for me to get the hang of decorating at Christmastime, mostly because we have blue kitchen cabinets and a blue sectional in our living room. So the base color scheme of blue, white, and gray looked very strange with the traditional green & red of Christmas. But, too much blue & white feels flat and over-kill monochromatic to me. Conundrums abound!

For example, here are my Christmas dishes & they are red and white. It works with the blue & white kitchen — but I have to be pretty intentional to keep it feeling cohesive. I am slowly adding pieces that help our remodeled home gel with the Christmas decorations I had from the past two homes.

Long story short, I’m slowly modifying the color scheme and getting new ideas from other blogs, but for now this is how far I’ve made it! Because the living room is out of sight from the kitchen, we added a second tree in the dining room. I caught the cat on camera, he’s about to pounce on a ponytail holder.

I am surprised how much I enjoy the flocked tree. I would have never chosen it, but the rest of the family outvoted me & I was happy they had a strong opinion about something for Christmas. It was cute to me when the kids & John helped pick this one out at Lowe’s after we moved here.

Here’s an example of a spaced where I’m not enjoying the red Christmas accents. Honestly, I’ll probably take the picture down and move the poinsettia yarn & be much happier with this nativity setup.

On the other hand, I like the little bits of red in the house print, because they are anchored by lots of blue and green from the surrounding pillows. What I am learning is that, for this house, the red has to be about 20% and green and white need to be the remainder to make things feel the way I hope.

Remember, I tell myself: I’m shooting for Christmas, not 4th of July!

This runner feels festive & anchors the red & white of the dishes with the deep green. It’s a little more formal than my actual life, but I don’t mind a touch of fancy adding into the every day life — especially at the holidays!

Joslyn is very into wrapping gifts for the first time this year. Here I gave her a scrap of paper & she wrapped up my living room coasters as an “early gift.”

I loved it. Whatever keeps ’em busy and happy counts!

This wall hanging is from my farmhouse sewing days. I hang it here every year, mostly because I cannot find a better spot. The kids are always very impressed when I hang it up & I am happy they get to see a side of me that had a little bit more time to create quilts. I’ll get back to quilting again eventually, but for now it’s special to show them a piece of that time of my life.

A just added this little tree this week, I forgot it in the last box of decor. I need some ornaments for it, but for now I’m delighted with the pop of green in the kitchen.

Lastly, here’s our un-fancy tree in the living room. I got this idea from Joanna Gaines. I read once that her family has a sentimental tree in their master bedroom & a styled tree in the main living space. I love having all the sentimental ornaments together on this tree in the living room. Since decorating is something I enjoy doing, having two trees is a bonus as well. The whole family goes low-key on this sentimental one & everyone helps. Then, for the flocked tree, I don’t let anyone help & that’s my special creative project!

At the bottom of the photo above you can barely see the two pillows I also made in the farmhouse days. They are wonky stars & I think I modified a pattern I found in a magazine.

That about wraps up the decor!

But, before I go, here’s a few more festive holiday wrapping photos. Jesse was so, so serious about his cutting. He did this for 30 minutes uninterrupted. Solid gold wrapping time for me.

We are all about passing the time around here in the winter, so we also had the bunny in the house for awhile, too!

He’s having a blast. Snip, snip, snip.

The big kids were really into wrapping for the first time this year, too. I’m loving this age at Christmas time. Finally big enough to really do some cool projects. Especially Miss Joslyn, she loves it all! Sewing, baking, wrapping, shopping: she is here for the holiday festivities.

J.D. preferred to deliver the gifts under the tree after Joslyn and I finished wrapping. He felt important & I was happy to see him jazzed about his “job.”

I’m feeling pretty sentimental today. Thanks for coming through the Christmas 2020 tour with me. Our Christmas show is almost over & now we’re going to make & decorate Gingerbread men while we wait out this blizzard.