A holiday home tour focused on decorating the living room and kitchen for our first holiday season in our new home to create a cozy space.
This holiday season is the first in our new home. We moved in just before Halloween and life has been a bit of a whirlwind ever since. We’ve unpacked almost everything, but so much of the house is “incomplete.” I’ve been making a conscience effort to slow down and really enjoy the holidays as much as possible. I focused almost all of my holiday decorating on the living room and kitchen, since that’s where we spend most of our time together as a family. And I spend most nights on the couch with a glass of wine, or mug of cocoa, watching a Christmas movie or reading by the light of the tree. I’m sure in years to come other spaces will get more of the holiday spirit, but this time I wanted to go all out in a small space and just enjoy it. So I guess this is really just half of a holiday home tour 😉
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2020 Holiday Home Tour
Holiday Home Tour – Living Room
The living room is where we spend almost all of our evening time as a family. Plus it’s where the tree goes. So I wanted this space to be super festive. Our tree is made up of just family ornaments this year. There are a few fragile ones at the top, but mostly I just let the kids decorate the tree with all the kid-safe stuff this year. I have many years of fancy trees ahead of me, but limited years with my little ones. It doesn’t matter what the tree looks like, it just matters the memories that we made decorating it. (And those memories were happy until that thing fell on my head! I was a bit of a grumpy mom after that).
I put together our little Star Wars tree and originally planned to put it upstairs in the loft. However, my daughter insisted that it stay in the living room with the other tree. I guess trees need friends too. That means that we have two Christmas trees on the same wall, but we all kind of love it. I also added a little garland under the TV because that area was looking a little boring between the trees.
The Stockings Were Hung
The new house doesn’t have a fireplace, so we don’t have a mantel for stockings. However, this little cut out into the playroom works as the perfect spot to hang stockings. Our stockings are one of my favorite decorations and traditions. It all started with my stocking of the skiing bear on the end. My Granny made that stocking for me as a kid. She passed years ago. I love having a piece of her memory hanging up at the holidays. For my daughters’s first Christmas I decided to make her a stocking in the same style. The style is called appliqueing, which is where you use fabric to create pictures. It’s like paint by number but with felt and stitching. The stocking took hours and hours to make, but I felt close to my grandmother while doing it. Plus, I was so dang proud of myself when I was finished!
I made my younger daughter one for her first Christmas a few years later. That left my husband as the only one of us without an appliqued stocking, so last year I made him one too. These stockings are so cute and special. I hope to continue to make them for nieces, nephews or even my own grandkids in the future.
Festive Pillows
Switching out our pillowcases seasonally is my favorite, so I have a growing stash of holiday pillow covers. I prefer pillow covers over actual new throw pillows because they take up WAY less space when storing. The snowman and Merry Christmas cases came from Amazon a few years ago. The other two were part of my Winter boxes from Decocrated both this year and last year. I especially love the sweater one that says “Get cozy with it. Fa la la la la la la.”
Holiday Home Tour – The Kitchen
In the kitchen I put lights and garland above the cabinets. My husband thought I was crazy for doing it, but I love the glow of the lights at night. It adds such an element of warmth and coziness. I added a few little Christmas touches to my shelves with a few little gingerbread cookie cutters and Santa Yoda. It’s just not Christmas without Santa Yoda.
I always wanted a big kitchen with an island. The extra space is so useful for cooking and preparing meals. Plus, it’s fun to have somewhere else in the kitchen to decorate. My two tiered tray from Decocrated is perfect here. It adds an element of height, plus a lot of color from the ornaments on the bottom.
Holiday House Vignette
The kitchen is also home to the bar cabinet that Jesse built for me a few years ago. It has kind of become my mantel for seasonal decorating, since I don’t have one of those anymore. For the holidays, I made a little blue, green and white winter village. The little white houses came from Dollar Tree for my mantel last year. I spray painted them white for a more neutral and timeless look. The bottle brush trees are from Target, in the Dollar Spot. The ceramic blue and green trees were in my Decocrated box last winter. I absolutely love the texture and the colors. They also pair well with the flat wooden houses and tree that were in my Decocrated box this year. I’m kind of obsessed with how this little village came together this year.
This season I’m really trying to just enjoy Christmas without too much of the usual fuss. Since we’re going to be spending all the time at home, I wanted it to be as cozy and festive as possible. I also didn’t want to clutter things up because then I’d be annoyed with Christmas and toss it all out by New Year’s haha. I think we struck a good balance this year! Though I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I’ve got tubs of decorations and a few extra trees that will definitely be used next year!
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