Porch Daydreamer’s Christmas Cheer in 2017

My original plan for this Christmas season was to not do a Christmas Home Tour. Instead I’d like to spread some Christmas Cheer!

The kind that puts a smile on your face as you open the boxes of ornaments to decorate the tree, turn on the exterior twinkling lights for the neighborhood to admire, or set out cookies and milk for Santa!

All those memories of Christmas past come flooding in as I decorate my home. This is a special time of year in our family that I cherish.

So the pictures you see of my holiday decor are from the heart.  Items placed not to wow or impress, but instead to bring warmth and cheer to my family.

It’s personal at every turn and I’d like to document Christmas 2017 because I am grateful that we will celebrate as a family together again.

Each year is a blessing as your parents age and kids grow up. I tear up every Christmas Eve dinner looking over at my little family relishing we get to celebrate together another year.

The Christmas Tree

Are you the type of person who decorates a tree to be a centerpiece or are you one who decorates it with personal ornaments? I’m the later collecting ornaments every year that have special meaning. Of course I love to decorate too, so I add base ornaments that blend in with the room.

Do you do artificial or a real tree? For all of my life up until last year, it was real or nothing! That’s a post for another time, but I decided with my son heading off to college and no man around to help get the darn thing up it was more practical to do artificial. No regrets!

Here is my naked tree, so you can see how beautiful an artificial tree can look.  In 6 min and 42 sec, the tree was up with lights on! Not bad and yes I really did time myself 🙂

7 1/2 feet of lovely. Now that I work from home I had the time and ENERGY to devote some love and time to gift wrapping! Adding a little ribbon to a package goes a long way to making it look special.

The Christmas Mantel

This is my EASY button and if you missed my post on how I put up this mantel in 30 minutes CLICK HERE. Every year this is where I start my holiday decor because it is instant gratification! Maybe next year I’ll do something more grand, but this has been just fine for a few years. It looks even better all lit up at night.

Christmas Eve we switch out the pretty stockings for our beautiful needle point versions with our names! Mick the dog always has his front and center.

The Christmas Village

This is my son’s FAVORITE! We started collecting this village in 2011, when we saw it at a Lowe’s Home Improvement store.  I’ve expanded it a little over the years, but it lives on this credenza so it likely won’t change much from here forward. The fire pit is the coolest and even flickers plus the ice skaters really do skate on the rink!

The Christmas Man Cave

Ah, my labor of love this year! My One Room Challenge™ massive makeover of the office, sitting area, and man cave.  If you missed it, CLICK HERE for the 7 weeks of change. Now that I work up here all day I wanted to add a little tree to enjoy during the day. It’s decorated in my son’s college football team colors just like the room and complete with a football ornament as the topper 🙂

The Christmas Kitchen and Sitting Area

This is where we love to sit and talk plus we eat at the island like it’s my kitchen table – well, it is my kitchen table because I don’t have one! I LOVE that I added a sitting area that faces into the kitchen this summer. Now 4 to 5 people can easily sit on the counter chairs in the kitchen facing the two chairs in the sitting area. It’s quite cozy and where happy hour happens in my house 🙂

This year I made little chair back wreaths for the counter stools and love them.  If you’d like to know how to make them, CLICK HERE.  Then to add a little white Christmas to the kitchen, little sparkling snowflakes were added to the chandelier. If you are at a loss with how to decorate at Christmas time, one of the EASIEST things to do is add ornaments to a bowl 🙂

The Christmas Dining Room

This is kind of a funny situation because our family tradition is to eat chili Christmas Eve, before we open our family gifts.  Chili – odd right? My parents started this and I’ve fully embraced it.  It’s an easy, make-ahead, and eat quickly to get to opening the presents kind of meal! Of course we make it as fancy as possible doctoring up the chili with tortilla chips, cheese, guacamole, etc.  It’s really fun! Then on Christmas night it’s filet mignon.

This year I set the dining table two different ways – um, I just changed out the salad plates! To show a white, gold, and silver version and one a little more colorful with vintage plates. Plus the chandelier got decked out with some greenery and a mistletoe crystal.

Using the same idea as I did at Thanksgiving (if you missed that post CLICK HERE) and added bunny tails to the buffet lamps for a little softness and whimsy 😉

Happy Christmas as they say in the UK and Merry Christmas to those in the US! Please enjoy some time away from work and the glow of Christmas with those you love! Hoping this time spent in my home has you singing Christmas songs in your head and feeling that holiday spirit 🙂

We are off to enjoy time in Blowing Rock, NC which is in the mountains.  We go to this lovely spot to eat lunch every year and will pick out our 2017 Christmas ornament to mark time. Sending you peace and many blessings in the true spirit of the holiday.

Until next time…

Porch Daydreamer

Tracey