Christmas Around the Corner

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When I was a child, there was a house around the corner from us, that always decorated their house and yard with enough Christmas lights that they could have charged admission and given tours. One year my family was talking about how Christmas was “just around the corner” as we were passing by that house, and so we instantly dubbed it the “Christmas Around the Corner” house. Now, whenever we see a brightly decorated property we say to each other, “there’s Christmas around the corner!” 

I do love decorating for the season, (or basically every season!) so I admire and enjoy how much effort some people go to with their decorations- I certainly don’t go to those lengths myself! This year, however, is my first year working at a decorating store during the Christmas season, and so I get to go all out and “decorate for Christmas” pretty much every shift. Needless to say, it’s been a lot of fun!

I never decorate until December (on whichever weekend is the first of the month) and this year I got my decorations up on December 3rd. It just seems too early to me, to start decorating in November. To be honest, I’m always switching things around, and so I would get bored with the Christmas stuff if I had it up for two whole months. Also, considering that we always have a real tree, and this year I have real evergreen boughs, it would be pretty dried up if we put it up too soon! 

I was planning on investing in some nice faux evergreens this year, but didn’t see any that I liked, and so I actually ended up getting real boughs from my parents place. I love them so much that (until they one day move away and no longer have wooded areas for me to pillage) I will continue to do that every year! I don’t do a tree at my place, since I spend Christmas at my parent’s house, so in lieu of a tree, I did an evergreen and branch bouquet and hung some of my vintage ornaments on it. 

The main crux of my decorating involves my vintage ornament collection- this year my sister and I found six boxes of vintage ornaments at the thrift store- we couldn’t grab them fast enough! We also hung some of the vintage ornaments in the fig tree, which looks very pretty in real life, but didn’t really show up well in the pictures, so you’ll just have to believe me 🙂 I also got these new reproduction mercury glass ornaments this year at the store I work at- I absolutely LOVE mercury glass and I love how they paired with the pink vintage ornaments. This tray looks very “millennial” doesn’t it? (Millennial pink anyone?)

This wood burned garland by Kluane National Workshop is also new this year. I picked it up at a craft fair, but if you’d like to check them out, they have a shop right here.

Well, this is a fairly heavy picture post, but I guess I’m making up for all the posts I haven’t written this past month 🙂 

When do you put up your Christmas decor and what are some of your Christmas decorating traditions? 

As an extra bonus- here is the mantle I did at my parent’s place. It turned out very pretty with the fairy lights, greenery and nativity, so I couldn’t leave it out!