Christmas House Tour

I've spent parts of the last week or so getting our little apartment ready for Christmas, and finally have some pictures to share with you! Since I've had to do most of my decorating at night after work, it's been hard to take good photos without natural light (except for a couple on the weekends). Bear with me on photo quality, but I was so ready to share that I just went ahead and did the best I could!

Join me on a little 2012 Christmas tour...

First stop is our tree. As I mentioned in my Thanksgiving Rewind post, we stopped at Crazy Joe's Christmas Tree Farm on our way home from C's family's house and cut it down. So it's actually been up since November 25th! I hope it survives until Christmas. I'm a little worried about it drying out by then, but it looks pretty now. I love coming home to the smell of a real Christmas tree every day.

Here's the tree during the day...

And at night with the lights on...

This year's tree keeps with the color scheme I mentioned in my inspiration post: green, white and silver. My ornaments are a simple collection of silver, clear glass, and mercury glass. The silver ones are especially special, because each one was a gift from my parents. They have given me one every year at Christmas for as long as I can remember. Pretty crosses, like the one below, along with stars and snowflakes, are a big part of the collection. Of course, as a kid, these were my least exciting gifts, because the didn't do anything. Boy, do I appreciate and love getting them now. Thanks mom and dad. I'm really glad you had the foresight to give me something that I would be able to use every year for the rest of my life!

The sheep in the background of this next photo is another special one. It was on my grandparents' tree every year. Our family spent many of my childhood Christmases with them in Montgomery, and every year when we arrived, the tree was already up and decorated. I would go find my favorite ornaments and I remember this sheep well. Years later, I found it when we were cleaning out their house after my grandmother passed away. This little sheep came home with me and reminds me of my grandparents every time I see it. It's the only white ornament on the tree.

New additions to the tree this year are these mercury glass birds I picked up at a barn sale a few weekends ago...

...And these glass balls with a pretty swirl around the outside. I bought them on sale after Christmas last year from Crate&Barrel outlet. They don't seem to have them anymore, but they do have a lot of pretty ornaments if you're looking for some! 

The next stop on our tour is a handmade Advent calendar. This was a fun, though somewhat tedious, project I did last weekend. I've got a simple tutorial coming tomorrow (I know, I know, we're already 5 days into December...but better late than never!) in case you want to make your own. So consider these photos a preview!

I hung it in our living room over the TV. I wish we had a mantel or something I could hang it over, but we're working with limited space here. Gotta work with whatcha got. :)

Onward!

The closest thing we have to a "mantel" in our apartment is the tabletop on our jelly cupboard (and no, we don't actually keep jelly in there in case you were wondering). Since it's one of the first things you see when you walk into our apartment, I've been changing what's on top of it seasonally. For Christmas, I put these glass trees and angels on the tabletop. They were also from my grandparents' and were out on display every year at Christmas. The tray they're sitting in was a wedding gift. I believe it's made by Mariposa.

The last stop on our tour is our side tables in the living room. The trees that are sitting here were a makeover project from last weekend. This is the "after" of one of the trees. There's one on each side table.

A full post on that makeover is coming Friday, so come back then to see what they looked like before, and how I changed them up to fit more with the look I was going for this year.

That brings us to the end of the tour for today! I'm constantly tweaking and adding things, so I may have some other updates for you to come. I'd like to add some real greenery as it gets closer to Christmas, but am still planning to keep things clean and simple. 

How have you decorated for Christmas this year? Any especially meaningful ornaments or decorations? I'd love to see/hear about them!

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