Christmas Decor

I first want to throw out there that I know these pictures are not the best quality. I'll be real honest with you, I took these late last night knowing that I wanted to show you our decor today and I had sleep on my mind when I took these and didn't think twice about grabbing the Nikon to take good quality pictures, so what you see is what you're getting :) Good ole phone pics. Hah!

I adore decorating for any occasion, but Christmas is my favorite! Each year we always add something new to the decorations. Mine and Tarls first year together we only had enough decorations to fit into a plastic bag. A few ornaments and a strand of lights. After all these Christmas's together we're now up to three storage boxes and growing and I love it!

The chalkboard, the "let it snow" snowman, the garland on top the mantle and the twin gold glitter trees is this years new additions. We've always used real inexpensive garland but I wanted to invest in some good, sturdy, beautiful garland this year. This picture does it no justice. It's very full, not as dull looking as this picture makes it seem and it's full of pine cones. I wanted to add some lights to it but I didn't get around to it this year.

This silly girl and her peace sign that she makes in every photo taken - love her!

Side note - we have always loved a real Christmas tree, always! However, I bought a faux tree 4 years ago after Christmas when they went on sale for half off. I wanted to invest in a very nice, very full faux tree that was pre-lit. A lot of faux trees aren't full and you can see right through them, but like I said, I invested a little bit of money (even on sale at half off!) into getting a really good one.

The lights on this pre-lit tree has only lasted us 4 years. Last night once we turned them on, a small section went out. As you can see in the pic there's a little spot that has no lights. I was very upset that it only lasted as little time as it did. I know four years is a while, but if you think about it, that's really only 4 months of lights for the money spent. I know that I can always add a strand of lights to the open section, but Tarl said this is a great reason for us to get a real tree next year. He's right, next year we're getting a real tree!

Normally our little silver sleigh holds hot chocolate, but this year it's holding Keurig cups. It's all about convenience.

For the first time ever, we decorated the outside of our home too. I love driving home every evening seeing our trees in the yard lit up along with icicles gracing our roof. It's simply lovely.

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Last night's advent was to ride around and look at Christmas lights, but not without getting some ice cream first. Ice cream really does make this tradition stand out :)

...and this morning, Olly and Kristoff were having a snowball fight!