A Farmhouse Christmas

I know it’s still the day before Thanksgiving — but since I’m over nine months pregnant and since I wasn’t able to put up many decorations last year — I decided to get a head start on holiday decorating this year.

And I’m SO glad I did!!

We’ve been enjoying the twinkling lights of Christmas trees and garland in every room since November 16 — I love it so much I may have have to change my tradition of setting up the Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving… we’ll see!

Here is a mini tour of our Christmas decorations so far.

This is the new tree I got just last week. It’s a 7.5 food slimline tree that would have cost over $300… but I got it from a local thrift store for $40 and it was already set up with all the branches perfectly spaced out!  It even came with the box for easy storage after Christmas!

This tree is in our office and is in the direct line of sight for anyone who walks through the front door.

Since we don’t have a fire place {I have plans to make one though}, I hung some old knitted stockings on the barnwood shelves. I actually really like the look!

Since that tree is our “main tree” this year; that is the tree I put all of Dave and my childhood ornaments on. We’ve each gotten at least one ornament every year of our entire lives, and we also have a bunch of ornaments we made as kids too.

We currently have over 80 of these ornaments, but for some reason, the ones above are a few of my favorites. I got the Cabbage Patch doll ornament in 1988 when I got my first Cabbage Patch doll; the sparkly Christmas tree was one I made in preschool; and the wooden bell was given to us on our first Christmas as a married couple.

One of the main ways I like to decorate during the holiday season is with natural items like pine cones, berries, greenery… and candy canes! OK, so candy canes aren’t really natural, but I have a bunch of HUGE fake candy canes that I use to decorate various places around our house.

I’m also a big fan of the tall, skinny Alpine trees — and have at least 5 of them floating around different rooms of our home. I often just put white lights on them and call it good, but I decided to string some cranberries and big gold bells on this one.

The book case is in the corner of our living room and just needed a few splashes of red, green, and gold to look really festive!

Told you I love these big candy canes! 

The girls are loving the lighted garland and candy canes that I used throughout the upstairs and down the banister. They started taking pictures immediately when they got home from school!

I have so many more decorations to share… but I think I’ll wait util AFTER Thanksgiving to post more pictures! For now, I’m just thrilled that I was able to get all the decorations up before our baby girl arrives.