Christmas Decorating, 2015

As I mentioned yesterday (whoa, two days in a row!) I had a Christmas Sock Exchange Party at my house last week.  It was so much fun!  I invited some friends who each bought a cute pair of Christmas socks and filled them with little goodies.  Mostly we laughed and ate which is my favorite kind of party!

Then we put on our socks (well, someone put it on her arm!) and took a picture.

In addition to cooking and cleaning I also had some holiday decorating to do to get ready for my party!

Now I would love to be one of those people who spreads Christmas over every part of my house but I have neither the money nor the time to do that so I concentrate my energy on my tree and the outside lights and a couple little super easy items.

I dumped some pinecones in a vase

and hung my stockings.  Side note, I love those stocking holders but they suck!  I like that they’re simple and inexpensive but once I put stuff in the stockings they all fell down.  Does anyone else have these and have any tips for weighing down the holders so they’ll keep my filled stockings up??

My mantle is probably my favorite thing this year.  The vases are filled with little slices of wood and I set out the little bottle brush trees I got from Wal-Mart for 25¢ each after Christmas last year.  My giant pinecones came back out and nestled into my antlers (if you followed me on Instagram (@awize) you would already know all of this!)

You may remember that last year I bought a set of solar powered Christmas lights from Amazon.  I loved them so much that I bought two more strands this year

I totally did the lights wrapped around tomato cages thing and I love it but I’m not happy with the lights on the house for two reasons.  First they’re not super tight up there.  I want a straight perfect line of lights and that’s not happening right now.  Also, when I was taking them down last year I cut one of the wires and now half the strand doesn’t work.  Dang it!  Now I need to get back up there and take it down and either re-hang it in a way that it’s not obvious that half of it is burned out or switch it out for one of the full strands that is currently wrapped around a tomato cage.

Finally, my tree.  Remember that last year I found this beauty at a thrift store and I’m still thrilled with it!

I again stuck with white lights (1200 of them) with a silver tulle garland and white and silver ornaments.  I made the fox and moose ornaments using this dough and these cookie cutters (which were an impulse buy on this trip) and hung them with some twine.  The little white birds fit in perfectly with my theme and add a little bit more sparkle!

I’ve really loved sitting at home in the evenings and enjoying the glow from my tree-I’m going to miss it so much when Christmas is over!

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I’ve spent today searching for some projects for our Use It Up Challenge and I think I’ve come up with something good!

I encourage you to dig through your stashes of stuff and join us!

-A