For some reason, this year I’ve been really enthusiastic about decorating for the holidays. This is the second Christmas we’ve had in our own home. Our first, in Lemoore, was filled with the tiny tree and dozens of cookies. Last year, we were home for the holidays on our way to Misawa. It was stressful to be homeless and not knowing how our travels would end up, but wonderful to see everyone and spend quality time.
This year I’m doing double efforts since I didn’t get to decorate last year, I think. It’s relatively calm this year, no traveling, no PSCing, no worries. We’ll spend some quality time just the two of us and enjoy some time with our friends. So I had more time to focus on those little extras that make the house sparkle for the season.
The tree is of course number one on anyone’s decorating list. Ours is a tiny fake one, bought on sale at Lowe’s. I’d love a real tree or a large pre-lighted one, but with moving to unknown homes every few years, a small one is much more realistic. We wouldn’t really have room for anything bigger in our apartment right now anyhow.
Luckily, with lights and ornaments, the tree looks much better than when it’s first unpacked. And it fits into the one empty nook we had in our living room. Perfect.
Our wrapping paper this year was so cute, I cut some up and put the pieces into our wall collage. I left some browns and greens that were already there so it’s not Christmas overload, but it does look pretty cheery.
I wanted red everywhere this year. Apparently I needed some color in our relatively neutral apartment. With both of our preferences often leaning towards brown or black, it’s easy to get bland when we can’t easily paint the walls. I’ve got pops of red here and there now.
On our coffee table. I had made some twine balls a few weeks ago (wrapped twine around balls of newspaper and glued the end piece), and I had some plastic twine-looking balls in a closet sitting untouched. I grabbed a few and spray painted them red, which makes the bowl look more interesting on the coffee table and brings in more red. And I’m already trying to decide what color to use after Christmas… Our books just happened to match the decor this week too. Jeff’s is red, mine is maroon.
On the entertainment center, I added some empty wine bottles I spray painted red as well. I love how they look and how easy they were to do. Easy decor and easy pops of color, plus my love of painting is satisfied for a while.
I hung these sparkly snowflakes with twine from the overhang over the entertainment center and DVD stands. I had bought a pack of ornaments in 2009, but these are just too big for our small tree, so they became hanging decorations instead. They’re beautiful in person, but very hard to photograph in our sunny living room!
Here you can see the snowflakes hanging and the pops of red on our entertainment center. I swapped out some of our decorations for more green, white, and red things. Our big blue planters stayed though – Jeff even let me buy a new plant recently for the one on the left! The one on the right is still hanging in there, but the lack of bright sunny days is hurting my green thumb.
I hung our stockings from the counter overhang. We have small ones with our names on them. I don’t know where the red ones came from, but they’re pretty so I hung them up. More stocking stuffers for both of us!
My new favorite green thing is my little cactus. I picked him up when I picked up the plant for the entertainment center, hoping a cactus could outlive my questionable thumb. These cracked glass votives were too cute to pass up, so I picked them up with some matching green votives. The plate was a can’t pass up deal at the BX, they had all sorts of decorative bowls and platters with Christmas decorations, so I got one and luckily found a way to use it.
Cute, right? We’re having friends over for Christmas Eve, and I’m tempted to go buy a few more plates and bowls to put all our food on.
It’s not a big, dramatic difference. I don’t want that drastic of changes, because we still have to live in the apartment through Christmas. But it feels a little more cheery when it’s cold and snowing outside, or the wind is howling against the windows like it is right now. Brrr.
Happy holidays!
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