Christmas tree – simplify the chaos

This year, I am really trying to keep the holidays simple. And one of the biggest ways I’m doing this is by simplifying my holiday decorating.

I’ve accumulated many decorations over the years, and I usually have something Christmas-y on every surface. This year, I scaled way back for a couple reasons. We just moved into our new house in May, and we are slowly slowly making it our own. This means we don’t have a ton of furniture and I don’t have many shelves or surfaces to decorate, particularly that are out of my toddler’s reach (he can pull candle lights off the windowsills and end tables are definitely out!) Plus, the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas feels really short this year and we have our hands full with a toddler and newborn so we wanted to just spend a few hours decorating and then call it good.

I didn’t want to clutter up the space I do have, so instead of getting everything out, I chose a few of my favorite decorations to use and kept the rest in storage. I actually love that now there are just a few areas where Christmas decor is concentrated throughout the main areas! Today I thought I’d just give you a little peek into our home.

This kitchen counter feels so festive and makes me happy every time I walk by!

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I love seeing this sweet little nativity scene in the playroom and LJ loves to play with it. It’s a great way to start introducing him to the story of Jesus’ birth.

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We don’t have a fireplace, but our staircase is a focal point in our entry and living room, so this doubled as a place to hang garland AND all our stockings. Even Scout and Macie get one. 🙂

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I wasn’t sure how it was going to go to put up a Christmas tree with LJ, but honestly, after the first day, he’s mostly left it alone. He likes to look at the ornaments but he’s only pulled one off the tree. I have shatterproof ornaments I got several years ago at Target (mine aren’t sold anymore but these are somewhat similar and I actually like their look even better!) for the low branches and we also put the sturdiest ornaments at the bottom. So far, it’s worked well and we’ve had no broken ones!

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Outside, Justin hung one row of icicle lights on our porch, I hung a wreath and set up two little trees (my one Black Friday splurge!) on either side of the door. We also have smaller touches throughout the first floor like a festive runner on our table, a few festive pillows on the couch, some holiday towels in the kitchen and half bath, as well as a few candles. We didn’t put any decorations in the basement or any of the upstairs rooms. It’s not much (or at least, not nearly as much as it usually is), but it feels like the perfect amount this year!

My favorite part of Christmas decorations? The way it makes our house feel SO cozy at night.

Did you go all out for decorating or scale back this year?

Last week, I wrote a blog post about my attempt to have a stress-free Christmas card this year. I can officially say that I am getting closer!

I wanted a simple, but cute set-up for our card. Justin and I are fun-loving people so I wanted the picture to reflect that part of our personalities as well.

First, I set the scene. I found an old lace curtain in storage in our basement (we are renting and the crawl space has a ridiculous amount of stuff left over from previous tenants. Sometimes it’s annoying, but in this case, it was very helpful!)

I hung the curtain against a cream colored wall with small push pins. The tacks left very little trace and since the curtain was light, they were strong enough to hold it up. Then I strung two strands of white lights in columns across the lace background. The tacks came in very handy because they also held the light strands up.

I then put our teeny pre-strung fake Christmas tree (I got it for $7 at a yard sale in college!) by the edge of the lace for a little extra festivity. I put a green comforter on the ground and voila! (Pardon the dim picture . . . these were taken on my camera phone which does not adjust to light well)

Our Christmas photo-shoot was set up! It took 15 minutes tops and cost me nothing. I count that as a very successful stress-free step!

The lights in the basement are not super bright, so we kept them on while taking the picture. It kept our faces well illuminated but still showed the lights on the tree and background well. We set up the timer, put our camera on a chair at our eye level, and got into position!

What do you think? I personally love how it turned out! I bought Macie’s puppy hat here and already had the elf hat and antlers from previous years. I think they added a touch of fun, which was perfect for us!

Not gonna lie, taking a picture with a puppy was far from stress-free. She was not a big fan of her hat and it took about 30 takes to get her to pose. In the end, we had about 3 good ones to choose from (most were blurry fails) but the rest were pretty funny to see. We ended up having a lot of fun!