festive

Fa la la la la, la la la la….

I LOVE Christmas decorating! I had a photo shoot last month in the house for a Christmas decorating feature to go out next year in a magazine, and as it was not quite December it didn’t feel ‘christmassy,’ (although the photos I saw looked beautiful). Plus everything came down again at the end of the shoot. It was quite mind-blowing how fast the stylist and photographer worked. So it was like a Christmas-for-8-hours in a mind altering day!

A lovely fresh berry and evergreen wreath sets the scene on the front door

But come the 1st December I get everything out of the attic and from stashes all over the house. Boxes of baubles, lights, garlands and more. This is just some of the stash I have, it has grown over the years and I can see lots of things my children liked when they were small like little gingerbread men garlands… actually I have FAR TOO MUCH STUFF!

DINING ROOM

This year my children are 18 and 15, and I decided that for the first time we would not be doing the usual fir tree which always stands in the Dining Room, but an alternative version instead on a tabletop. I asked the girls if this was all right, as they are the ones that the tree is usually aimed at with decorations collected over the years that they remember and coo over. This idea went down OK-ish! I found this really cute 3D wooden tree at Hobbycraft, and it was a snip at £10.

Given that dining room had a recent overhaul, we did not use a lot of the existing tree decorations and stuck to gold and silver ones with accents of oranges (literally) around the room:

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Carol service dates are set, the turkey is ordered and the house is now officially dripping in decorations and lights.

My wreath made from twigs, moss, wood, berries and fir cones

This year I have scaled down the excessive decorations that I normally get carried away with, especially adorning the stairs that wind up through the house, as it became quite tricky to find the handrail when it was overloaded with garlands and lights. I was always waiting for a heavy thud as a Bellini Cocktail overloaded guest either missed the handrail or electrocuted themselves. Plus the cats felt that it was a snaking tree of epic proportions to hand from with their claws. So no stair garland this year.

However, the tree is up and looking very pretty. The baubles are mercury glass, clear glass, beaded ones and the special sentimental ones that my daughter gives me every year.