Happy Advent friends! I’m excited to finally be sharing our holiday home tour with you today! Enjoy!
I feel like I should start by telling you that our home is not decorated over the top like most of the other homes you see on Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram. I have nothing against those homes, in fact part of me would L O V E to have a home that was decorated to the hilt with perfectly coordinated decorations that looked professionally installed. (Why yes, you DID see my home in HGTV magazine!) But if I’m being true to who I really am, the girl who despises clutter and storing a billion things and having to haul it out and take it down every year, then I’ll probably never have that house. I’m learning to be totally okay with that.
So, that being said, we literally have three small-ish boxes of Christmas decorations, plus our tree, and each and every decoration I put out has a memory attached to it. I’d much rather have it that way I think. So, without further ado, here are our Christmas decorations!
Holiday Home Tour: Simple & Meaningful Christmas Decorations
Let’s start with our mantle, which is really the largest part of all our decorations. This is the first home we have lived in that has a fireplace so I was beyond thrilled to have a mantle to hang our stockings on! You can also see our Christmas cards on display, as well as some holiday-themed artwork that has been gifted to us over the years.
I love Nativity scenes, but I definitely favor the intimate ones with just Joseph, Mary, and Jesus since my family is just Chris, Jett, and me. I feel like it is such a resounding reflection to think about the intimacy between the three of them and the closeness that the three of us feel. To sum it up, it just gives me some warm fuzzies! This particular Nativity came from Jerusalem when we went to the Holy Land a few years ago.
I grabbed these letter ornaments from Anthropologie a few years ago to add to our stockings. They don’t make these exact ones anymore, but I love these beaded ones! I love the pop of color on them and Jett loves knowing which stocking is his (though he regularly changes his mind and we move his letter around a lot!)
Chris’ Grammie (Jett’s Great-Grammie) gifted us with this Nativity cross before she passed away a couple of years ago so I always think about it whenever I put it out.
This Nativity also came from Jerusalem and was hand-carved out of olive wood by our tour guide’s family. It was a gift from his family to ours, and I will always always keep it. I loved that trip so much and I love having little reminders of it around our house.
Back to the fireplace – a few weeks ago, on a cold, rainy, miserable afternoon, I decided I had to have a fire in the fireplace. So Jett and I hopped in the car and went on a bit of an adventure to get all the required equipment and firewood! We’ve made so many fires in here already that we have definitely gotten our money’s worth out of that investment! Now, even if it is 60 degrees outside, I love to start a fire just for the coziness factor!
We have had this tree for several years – 6 or 7 maybe? There is one section that the lights are out in, so we are thinking about getting a new one after Christmas this year, but this one is still good. I might keep it for my office!
Another gift from Jett’s Great-Grammie is the Santa Train! I can’t put a Christmas tree skirt on the tree (our older dog thinks it is his own personal restroom) but this train around the bottom is perfection! It sings and makes train noises and only annoys me slightly – Jett loves playing with it.
Here are a few of our favorite ornaments! This one is a recent addition – I won it in an ornament swap at our Pollinate Holiday weekend a few weeks ago! Chris and Jett L O V E A Christmas Story so I had to have this one for them!
The rest of my favorites all come from Jessica, a friend of mine who used to own a handmade stamping shop! She has made our personalized family ornaments every year for several years now!
I will miss getting these ornaments from her every year. Jessica, you’ll still make them for us right?
Of course, this one is my favorite!
Oh, my Christmas Village. All of these houses used to belong to my mother and have been passed down to me. She painstakingly set them up every year, with people and street signs and bottle brush trees. They were her pride and joy. When we didn’t know what else to get her for Christmas, we would get her a new house to add to her collection. I have many fond memories of my mom when it comes to these houses.
I just recently got my new entertainment center and I’m so excited to have a beautiful place to display these houses now! I can’t wait to start adding more to the collection!
Another piece that we have that makes me think of my mom is this wooden Nativity scene. I vividly remember being so excited when this came out of the box every year during Christmas! It was ALWAYS my favorite Nativity, I’m not sure why, but the feeling is still there. I just love how simple it is I guess!
Of course, we cannot have Christmas without the annoying, singing, dancing, music-blaring decorations! This ice skating rink was a gift for Jett from my Mimi, who passed away in February of this year. So even though it is way to loud for me, I try not to complain when Jett pushes the button to turn it on.
Next to that is this large and in charge Santa who inappropriately shakes his hips to Rocking Around the Christmas Tree. Oh, and it has a motion sensor – so it regularly scares the bejesus out of me! But it reminds me of my Grandma, who had SO many of these things for me to play with and annoy my parents with!
As a wedding gift, we receive pieces to the Willow Tree Nativity set. The metal sign is also from my friend Jessica – who is no longer in business – but it makes the perfect accent piece to this little corner!
I love turning this diffuser on to the candlelight setting at night – it makes the whole corner glow! Over the years, we have lost Joseph to a tragic toddler accident, but we still have Mary and Jesus, the wise men, and some barn animals. One of these years I will get a new Joseph and add to the set!
Lastly – we have Jett’s Christmas tree in his room! His Grammie (Chris’ mom) gave him this tree a couple of years ago and this year was the first year he really took ownership in decorating it! I am proud to say I did not help him hang a single ornament on there! (Though I did wrap the white fabric around the bottom, at his request!)
One of my favorite ornaments he has made this year is the snowman Lego ornaments! We are going to add one every year and one day have a Lego ornament tree, which I am nerdily excited for!
Our nursery staff at our church are just incredible – they have the coolest crafts for the kiddos to make every week when we go to our small group Bible study! This reindeer and the Santa handprint are both ornaments they made in the nursery. Aren’t they cool!?
Well guys – that is it! Like I said – there are not a lot of decorations but every single thing we put out brings back a memory of a time or place or person that is special to us! I hope you enjoyed this little tour!
If you loved this post, I’d be forever thankful if you shared it on Pinterest using the image below or sharing on Facebook and Twitter using the share buttons at the bottom of the post!
Your mantel looks great! I disagree. Very Pinterest worthy!!