Christmas Tree

House Tour: Our Green Christmas

| The Bee Life

This year it seemed like we were super late to the game getting our Christmas decor up compared to everyone else – although we do like to wait until after the Thanksgiving holiday.  With B’s surprise party this past weekend, I was extra motivated to have the house Christmas ready!

A few of our new pieces that helped put the finishing touches on our Christmas decor were our pillow cases from H&M, the mini brush trees for our dining room centerpiece and a new tree skirt!  …Speaking of tree’s can I gush over our tree for a minute?  We always get a real tree and this year decided to go a bit bigger in height – than we normally do.  We both laid eyes on our tree and decided to pull the trigger, we were joking about having an elf moment when we put it up in the house, but it fit! A bigger tree called for more lights – but she is a looker.

Besides being in love with our big tree, every year I always have fun putting up our alpine tree in our dining room – this is where I layer on all of our ornaments – and what I love even more than this is opening up all of our ornaments and all the fond memories that come with them, and the ornaments that I forget about!  We also put up a smaller alpine tree in our bay window stairwell, that has all of my childhood Hallmark Barbie ornaments and a few other ones!

Our house has been transformed into a little Christmas wonderland, and I just love our little Christmas snow globe that we get to enjoy for the next few weeks.  Now that the house is all ready, we can start getting ready for the big day through visiting with friends, holiday crafts and shopping for presents!

Shop my pieces: H&M Reindeer pillowcase, Velvet dark green pillowcase, Large bottle brush Christmas tree, Pom Pom tree skirt from Target

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Winter Weekends – Christmas Tree

| The Bee Life

The first weekend in December means the Christmas decorations are out and the tree is cut down! Growing up in, essentially, farm land, and now living in a suburb of a city, it’s a little harder to find Christmas tree farms without having to go for a drive.

We had found the perfect spot last year, had our cash ready and went for a drive. Well, we started out walking and looking for the imperfectly-perfect tree.  And we kept looking… and looking… and looking… it got to the point where we were about to leave and just buy a pre-cut one from a larger department store (no fun!) but then, there she was! Literally at the very end (or beginning), right before we were heading back – tall and skinny just like we wanted.

She was a little goofy, but we went for it, and cut her down!  We also got a fresh wreath and a bundle of swag and then headed back to grab a few other items to finish trimming the tree and house.  Once we got the tree in the house and in the stand, it was seriously perfect. We spent the rest of the weekend listening to Christmas music, decorating inside and out, watched Home Alone and stayed cozy at home!

 

Inside Our Christmas

| The Bee Life

Last weekend was full of decorating for Christmas! And with continual tweaks being made (always) I wanted to share with you our red and plaid Christmas wonderland!

The Dining Room
I wanted to keep the decor simple but still make a big impact and fill the space. I created depth by layering the plaid table runner and the greens.  I used extra bulbs to fill the glass vases and sprinkled some votives throughout for some nice mood lighting in the evenings.

Ornaments
We have a super tall skinny tree in our dining room as well, this tree is used for all of our ornaments, mostly B’s and one’s we’ve collected together.  I have yet to inherit all of my childhood ornaments from my parents, but then I think we will need a much bigger tree! I love opening the ornaments every year, they all have meaning and memories built behind them.

Cozy Living
The Merry Christmas sign was inspired of course by something I found on pinterest and one of my wood crafts! I hand painted the lettering, and used 100-year-old wood from our attic, it’s pretty hefty. The polar bear also holds special meaning, although it was a lucky find last Christmas season – my grandma used to have a ledge of polar bears, and it wasn’t until after she passed I truly appreciated that sentiment and wished I had asked for a few of hers.

The Tree
Here it is!  Our first REAL tree! She is a beauty.  Lots of lights and gold and red accents to trim the tree. And of course an angel as the topper (she was tough to find!)  – the last missing piece is a tree skirt.

I love being able to enjoy the house decorated, last year we were just moving into our house on December 13th – so throwing some decorations up and the fake tree was all we managed amongst the other chaos!

Merry Christmas!

New Traditions.

| The Bee Life

This 2015 Christmas season is going to be full of new traditions, one of which was this past weekend! So in the past and as I’ve mentioned before, the first weekend in December is usually spent in Upstate NY with my parents helping them get their Christmas tree.  Well this year I broke the tradition after nearly 5-years plus the 20 years prior to that when I lived at home.

One of the reason I wanted to stay was my office company party – this was the first year significant others could join, and the first time in the 3-years I’ve worked there that I decided to go for that reason.  It was a good time! And nice for B to meet a lot of the people I spend most of my time with.


Saturday afternoon we ventured out to the country to this small Christmas Tree farm. Which finding a place to go around a super urban area was a challenge in and of itself! I did not want to pick up our tree at a Lowe’s or Home Dept – I wanted the experience and also a lower price.  So of course once we got to this place, they only accepted cash or check, in which we had neither.  So we ventured back to the town we’d driven through and luckily found an ATM and grabbed some cash and headed back (so typical for us). IMG_9216FullSizeRenderIt was just what I was looking for – handmade wreath’s, cut your own tree’s, hot coco and a gift shop! The search for the perfect tree was cold and long, since when we’d left our house and by the time we got out there the temperature had dropped about 20-degrees and we were dressed for the warmer.  But we FINALLY found the tree, there was a lot to search through, especially since we wanted to get a tree that was significantly taller than 6’6″ B – a selfie was immediately taken.

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After B cut it down, we walked it back to the little hut to have it wrapped up, grabbed a fresh handmade wreath (because you just can’t beat it!) and we grabbed some hot coco and hit the road back to the house. IMG_9213We will definitely be going back next year, armed with cash and dressed warmer!  But it’s those little things that add to the experience and make it that much more memorable.

I spent most of Sunday afternoon putting the finishing touches on the tree and around the house! It really feels like Christmas, and I’m so happy how everything has turned out, I hope to share final photos with you all soon!

I can’t wait to see what other new traditions are in store for us this Christmas!