The most wonderful time of the year! If you saw my Prepping Your Home for the Holidays post, you know what goes into decorating my home! This post is the end result of our main living space, including our tree. I like to use a lot of blues, whites, greenery, and metallics, which ties in well with my home’s current aesthetic. Keep reading for the full tour of our Christmas home decor!
Our Christmas Tree
Ah, my favorite part of Christmas decorating! This is always the first step in decorating our home for the holidays because I just can’t wait to get it up! I just love the look of it, and the glow it gives at night.
Because our home is small, we really only have one good option for where to put the tree each year, the dining room. We like to put it in front of our window, between our two bookcases. One day, I hope to be able to have a home with three Christmas trees, because it seems so magical and, why not? But for now, I’m all about loving the home I’m in, and I do really love this!
We’ve had this tree from Michaels for four seasons now and I still absolutely love it. The flocking fits my style really well and definitely makes it more full. Plus, the fact that it’s prelit makes it so much easier.
I do have to say when putting it together, it definitely makes a bit of a mess. But a quick vacuum fixes that pretty quickly! If you’re wearing a cute outfit, I’d suggest changing before putting it up. The flocking does stick quite a bit to clothes. It comes off easily, but can be a little bit of a pain!
Tree Decorating Steps
I like to have a formula when decorating. This is pretty simple to follow, but I find it balances the tree much better and makes it easier on me in the end!
Lights
Even though this tree is pre-lit, I do like to add a second layer of twinkle lights as well. I think the combination of lights gives it more dimension and adds a bit more sparkle! I like to use these battery-operated lights so I don’t have to worry about plugging them in and hiding the cord. They also have a timer on them, so once I turn it on, it stays on for 6 hours and will repeat that cycle every 24 hours.
Start with the biggest ornaments and fill the gaps
I always start with my biggest ornaments and place them towards the center of the tree. This helps fill any gaps in the tree where there may be sparse branches. Having bigger bulbs in the center also helps with the layered look and adds a lot of depth. I find that when you put larger bulbs towards the front, they can sometimes be overpowering.
Move on to main ornaments
Next, I like to move to what I call the main group of ornaments. These are the ones that are more “average” in size, and the ones that I have the most of. I bought this pack from Michaels a few years ago and they’ve held up great and I still think they’re beautiful!
To get a balanced look, I like to focus on one style at a time. For example, I’ll take all of my glittery champagne bulbs and start placing them around the tree. I like to try to move in triangular shapes, if possible. This ensures that I don’t have two bulbs of the same style right next to each other. Once you start having a fuller tree, it can sometimes be hard to spot this right away if you don’t have a system in place.
Finishing touches
Finally, time for the last little details! I like to start with my more unique ornaments. For example, we have this ornament we picked up on a trip to Universal Studios a couple of years ago. This is special to us because when I lived in Orlando for a few years, my husband remained in Buffalo. He would visit me frequently, and we liked to spend our time together at this park. We spent a lot of time there over those two years, so it holds a fond memory for us.
Next, I like to focus on my picks. Some people do these early on with the large ornaments, but I like to wait until this point because I usually use the picks to fill in any last gaps that may be remaining. I also make sure to spread these out as much as possible so they are staggered and balanced. The picks I use in my tree are pretty small compared to others, but it’s all personal preference!
Finally, I’ll finish with my tiny bulb ornaments. I like to place these closer to the end of the branch because they add a perfect small detail. It’s like adding earrings to your tree!
Here she is! What do you think? I love how soft and pretty the colors coordinate together. It feels a little glam, but not over the top. It also just works well with my other decor that I keep out year-round with the hints of blue.
Decorating Our Fireplace
We’ve had this fireplace for a few years now and still love turning it on as often as possible! We picked it because it was really affordable and had a lot of space for storage. I do plan on giving it a bit of a facelift in the coming year to better match my style, but I still think it decorates beautifully for Christmas!
Garland
A few years back, I picked up this long needle, flocked garland at Michaels to drape on the fireplace. We’ve used it every year since, but something about it felt off this year. I just didn’t like the way the needles were clumped together. It hadn’t really bothered me any other year, but for some reason, I wasn’t a fan this year!
I had picked out a new garland for the staircase and thought about grabbing another one to match it. As I sat back down and contemplated, I remembered that I had recently picked up these picks from Joann. I was originally planning on using them for the staircase garland, but as I looked at it, it would actually look better on the fireplace. I grabbed my wire cutters and cut off the branches to turn it into 3-4 smaller pieces, instead of one big one, and started stuffing them in the garland.
I took a step back and guys, I really love it! It’s so lush and has even more dimension now. I like how the two tones of the flocking play off each other in just the right way. What do you think?
Decorative Pieces
I’ve had the snowglobe and silver reindeer for a while and they fit perfectly in the space. I especially like that the snowglobe is also a stocking holder. We never actually put anything in our stockings, but the little one is for both the cats 🐈🐈. Once I took a step back, I thought it was missing some blue. I added some blue to my staircase garland, so I wanted to carry it over here.
I did a quick google search for blue reindeer, and these $5 ones from Target popped up. I thought, wow, these are perfect and they were in stock so I headed out to grab them right then. They’re actually a lot larger than I had thought, but I like that they make a bit of a statement.
While I was there, I also grabbed these fairy lights and some small ornaments to place throughout the garland. I also added some to the front of our stockings!
Decorating the staircase
I was able to get my hands on this very popular Studio McGee Christmas garland this year. I absolutely love the touches of blue and it’s actually a really full garland for the price! I knew that the 6ft would be a little short, but getting two would probably be a bit overwhelming for the space. So, I knew that I would need to create a base layer underneath, that could carry up to meet the top and bottom so it would look more continuous.
Garland base layer
I used these very affordable pine garlands from Michaels as the base layer. I actually wrapped two around each other and fluffed them to be the shape I wanted. I then found the middle of the Studio McGee garland and hooked that to the middle of the staircase. This allowed me to have a more balanced look. Once the new one was all hooked and everything fluffed together, you couldn’t really tell all that much that they were separate! But, the next part is what really ties it all together.
(Base layer garland)
(With the new garland. You can see that it ends a little short)
Garland picks and ribbons
I have a variety of picks in my collection that I put into garlands and wreaths and had quite a few that matched this new garland perfectly, so this was pretty easy! I focused most of the picks on the top and bottom but also dispersed them throughout so that they would all blend together nicely.
I also picked up this pretty blue ribbon as well as this ivory ribbon from Michaels and used it to add to the top and end of the garland. I also decided to add them to my picture lights as a nice addition!
I finished it off with a layer of regular string lights and fairy lights to give it that added dimension!
And that’s it! Our little home is all dressed up for the holidays and she glows just as beautiful at night with all the lights on. Keep an eye out for a post coming soon on how I dress up the outside!
