The First Week Of December Looks Like This

December 5 and I am still slowly decorating my home.  I haven't made the first batch of cookies and won't until I buy eggs and milk at the grocery tomorrow.  However, it's beginning to look like a holiday is at hand...Messes abound.

The tree is up. 

For the third time, yet.  I started setting it up on the Friday after Thanksgiving but it leaned wildly.  I located the original tree stand and got it all decorated and we decided that it looked wrong somehow.  We bought a half whisky barrel and decided it would look better at least a galvanized gray.   I painted it and set up the tree in it yesterday and the dadgum thing toppled over and the ornaments went everywhere.



Secretly, I confess to relief.  It gave me the excuse I longed for to give in to my OCD-ish ways and redecorate it.  I was happy with it when I finished last night.  I'd really like tinsel on it, such a pain as it is.  Tinsel because I haven't had tinsel in years and there is something nostalgic and awesome about tinsel shining and shimmering and moving in the slightest whisper of a breeze.


There are wreaths on the doors.


I fell in love with this wreath on the Target website and after debating it for a week decided to order it.  It was $20, which I consider a fair price, considering every single thing I'd loved up until that moment ran about $80.  Ugh.

But my frugal nature is not completely masked.  I  saw a wreath on Pinterest I liked fairly well.  It was a bit rustic and I wanted something a little more glam.



I like it.  I love the simplicity of it, I love how nicely it stands out against the red door.  Most of all, I love that it cost me a whole $2.  I painted a twig wreath I had on hand with the same silvery gray galvanized paint color used on the barrel for the tree.  I bought the spool of silver ribbon and the two glittery deer ornaments at the dollar store yesterday.  $1 each for the ribbon and the pair of ornaments.

I finished the mantel today. 

We stopped at Hobby Lobby first before going on to do our grocery shopping.  I'd noted online the Christmas items were now 50% off.  I was hopeful I'd find the things I wanted were now more reasonable and they were.  I purchased four trees the two white cone type and the two silvery pines.  I went initially to buy material to make my own cone trees but the materials cost more than the trees did.


Those deer are cast aluminum.  I purchased them at in store at Target.  I was thrilled to find them.  They cost less than the resin ones I picked up at Hobby Lobby and made all the way to the counter before realizing one reindeer had snapped an antler already.  I think these two were under $25.  I'll use them for years I think.   The little metal tree is a dollar store purchase from 20 years ago.

I am happy with my centerpiece on the dining table.



I bought these smaller nutcrackers a few years ago after Christmas at the dollar store.  I made the cone trees last night.   All three cost me about $10, and a bad hot glue burn on the end of my index finger, to make.   It was messy working with the moss, but not as messy as projects I've done in the past.   This moss was on a spool like ribbon and has the sort of backing that carpet does.

You can see we're actively using our table at present.  I didn't set up for a fancy photo shoot since John was sitting right there working away at his computer at the time.  I think I want to change the candles for some pretty blue green ones, which I have on hand.

I've put some of the larger nutcrackers from my collection on the buffet but that's a work in progress at the moment.  Not at all happy with that.

I've been enjoying reading the Advent devotional and then writing my own Advent morning thoughts based on my readings. 

It's really enriched my study to meditate on the words read each morning and then develop my own writing from it.

The guest bed is stacked with decorations I've decided I don't want to use and this is the second lot brought indoors...

I have to get presents wrapped and get this cleared up in the next week.  The inn is full for another weekend this month.  I'm going to have the kids stay overnight in shifts.  Thankfully it's only the mess upon the bed.   The rest of the room has held up very nicely.

Generally speaking, the kitchen decoration is a plant or big bowls of fruit and maybe a jar of peppermint candies.   This year I took one of the cute pillow covers (4 for $4 on Amazon) and put a pillow and the quilt Katie made me for Christmas a few years on the kitchen sitting chair.  It's cozier than ever to sit there and study especially on chilly mornings.



I shared with John my aborted attempts to find any sort of Christmas program for us to attend.  So many churches did them the first weekend after Thanksgiving this year.  Our own church program will be next Sunday when John is working.   Then he surprised me with this:

We'll be going to see the Nutcracker performed in Macon at the Grand Opera House!  I'm excited.  I had the joy of seeing it the first year that Bess and Sam were together and to get to see a new performance of it is pretty awesome.

That's what the first week of December is looking like in my home.   What's it looking like in yours?