Merry Christmas Eve! Better late than never to share Christmas at our house this year! Hopefully next year I will have it together and get these pictures up earlier :)
I’m looking forward to today and hanging out with family, baking, church and time with friends. I always have this idyllic image of how things should go in my head. Like I will be baking with my kiddos together in the kitchen, all of us laughing and getting along. When in reality, my boys will probably start some kind of a flour fight or fight over who gets the stool and then who is taking up too much room on the stool, etc. and all this “Merry and Bright, All is Calm” picture I have in my head will be out the window as I shove everyone outside to run off their excitement. But I can dream! We haven’t started baking yet!
Here are some pictures from around our house this Christmas. We had a dinner party in the beginning of Christmas and I was crazy trying to get our decorations up and the basics done and then kinda ran out of steam and our Christmas crates have been all over the garage ever since. But it feels like Christmas in here, so that’s enough. If you stopped by, I would probably have a pot of coffee going and I would have run out of good assortment of snacks, so we would either be eating Costco peppermint bark or maybe pretzels. I’d go with the bark if I were you. And we would probably have to pause our conversation and tour about 1,258 times because we would be interrupted, but I would be so glad you were here!
I frame our visits with Santa and have a nice little collection going now.
I posted this on Instagram this week after getting back from Target and realizing I forgot something important that was on my list, the list I wrote all out and then left in the car, as I was in the check out line. At least this cutie was at the door to greet me!
This year I added a tree in our den/office and it has all the kids ornaments on it and all our Hallmark Keepsake ornaments we get every year from my husband’s grandmother. We’ve got quite a collection now! It’s my first artificial tree {not the highest quality} but I scored big time with the Target display and it was so quick and easy to put up! Snapped in a few pieces and plugged it in!! Seriously couldn’t be easier. I may rethink the big real tree we get for next year…
I wish I had better nighttime photos. This is one of my goals for 2016: Learn to take better photos and really know how to use my camera!!! This was from our dinner party. It was a Surf and Turf dinner and we moved furniture around so we could all fit. 
Our bigger tree. With a little admirer. She moved the stool over so she could check out all the ornaments.
We don’t usually have those blue striped chairs in front of the fireplace, but with moving furniture around in the beginning of the month, it’s stayed for now. And I kind of like it. Some cute wing back chairs my be on my wish list for this spot in the future.
On our big tree, I have glass and crystal ornaments and changed up a fabric garland I made a few years back to make it not so formal. I added white ball ornaments and silver ball tree pokes {is that what they are called?!?!} which added some extra dimension.
I picked fabrics that went with the colors already in our home, and not the traditional red and green. There is one real Christmas-y fabric and the rest are just fabrics I liked.
I added some blue plaid flannel pillows I found on Etsy to add some coziness for the winter.
Our mantle with our cherished stockings. All but the end one are handmade needlepoint stockings. My aunt made mine many, many years ago and my mom has carried on the tradition and made my husband and my boys’ stockings. My middle kiddo got his just a couple of weeks ago and Santa will be filling this one for the first time this year. They are so detailed and take about 2 years to complete. And I just love them. They are such a treasure to me. She’s working on my little girl’s stocking now!
Our front entry chest. I kept some of the decor I had from the fall and just added greenery and ornaments.
And my collection of silver bells. A dear family friend gave me a silver bell growing up every single Christmas. Love all these collections!
My little Christmas shelfie in our den/office! I wrote about this a little bit more here. 
And our chalkboard, which was also in this post.
The little hostess gifts I gave out this year. I could say I made this delicious peppermint bark. But I didn’t. I got it at Costco and then put it in mason jars and dressed them up a bit.
I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happiest of Holidays with those you love.
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