Y’all know how I love Christmas!! It is my #1 favorite time of the year! I just love everything about it! The lights! The greens! The smell! The weather! The warm fuzzy feeling I get when I gift someone something they love! Oh I love love love it!!!!

I am so behind this year though! Because of our trip, things I would have had started Thanksgiving weekend did not get started until the first weekend in December! Everything is behind….including this post! I’m still not done decorating, but I’ve just decided to give up and call it good for this year! It’s hard decorating in a new house! It’s much easier when you already know where everything goes. Plus, this house has much more space than our AZ house, so I had to buy a lot of new stuff….and I have not yet found the perfect items for some areas! Hey, there’s always the after Christmas sales…!

So here is my holiday home tour! Just in time for Christmas! 😉

Come on in y’all!

Pretty new wreath that J found us! 🙂

Proof of how far behind I am…taking these pictures on the 20th!

This is our little advent calendar set up in the entry way. We’ve had this since our first Christmas in UT…so 2004, maybe 2005. I think this will be it’s last year though. Every year I am having to glue something back on and it’s looking a little more ragged! I might try to refinish it…..we’ll see.

Can you believe that in 10+ years together, this is the first year we have went and picked out a real tree?! This house has a few great places for trees….in the library window at the front of the house (I’m not being pretentious, the builder called it the library so we do too), in the big bay window in the dining room….but I have to have a tree in the living room! Well the living room does not offer a good spot for a big tree, so we purchased a small table-top tree for in there. Then we decided to get a real tree for the library, and still use our fake one in the dining room! So we got 3 trees this year! Woohoo! Here’s some photo’s of picking out our tree. We got it at our local nursery!

Beautiful Frasier Fir

And it’s the perfect height!

We put this tree up in the library. It’s so full and beautiful! And smells amazing!

This tree got mostly new ornaments in a woodland theme. 

Like this cute woodland Santa Scene….

 And this pretty feathery friend…

Some candle lights for an old-fashioned touch and voila!

We picked out our second real tree, our little midget tree, and set it up on a stand in the living room. I don’t generally like multi-color lights, but it suits this tree! 

    

I used my Grandma Archer’s old tree skirt…

And this tree is trimmed with “our” ornaments! One of our traditions is to buy a new dated ornament every year! If there was anything special about the year, then we would pick a special ornament! 

Like this one of the year we got married! <3

And this was the year that we both deployed so Christmas had to be re-scheduled.

And this year was our trip to Germany and Neuschwanstein Castle!

Our little tree is complete! 

Our last tree came from a box! And the dog’s liked to play in the box! 

“If I sits good, will you let me out of this box?”

Ok, maybe Hoya didn’t like the box…. lol!

I purchased it last year during the after-Christmas sales at half off! It’s a gorgeous tree for being fake! And so many lights!! 

This tree got our other ornaments that we’ve had for years! Some are personal, some just pretty! Like these paw prints we did of the dogs!

And this pretty bell. Anyone recognize this? I’ll give you a hint….it plays a part in a holiday movie! 😉

Bonnie perfectly perched under our “Boxer” ornament, for the year we got Hoya! 🙂

Hoya wants to be in the picture too!

Clyde just wants to know what is going on!

We placed some of our nutcrackers on the window sill around the tree! 

I used my bench to create my Christmas Village, and set it up along a wall in the dining room.

My mom bought this cute little centerpiece for the table! (Placed with a few little guards!)

And that completes the dining room decorations! 

In the living room, we have our midget tree and the mantle! I so love having a mantle again!

The ceramic candle holders on the ends are two finds from Christmas Markets in Germany!

These bell lights are musical!

Our stockings are hung, and identified with a letter ornament!

And this is our annual nutcracker! Another tradition! We didn’t buy one in Germany because (a) we already have a German made one, (b) the nutcrackers at the Christmas Markets and airport are insanely priced, and (c) we bought something else instead! 😉

So funny! It “spoke” to me!

I flanked the fireplace with some pretty poinsettias!

REAL poinsettias! None of that fake crap! 😛

 The banister got some garland and Holly Berry lights!

 I’m still not happy with the mantle. I would rather not have the nutcrackers up there cluttering it up, but I don’t have anywhere else to put them this year. And I hate that big blank spot above the mantle, but I could not find the perfect piece to put there. So….next year I will try for better! 🙂

 The other corner of the living room houses a new shelving unit (gift from me to me!) and this! The “something else” from Germany!

 
It is hand-made, home-made! We bought it at the little Dudeldorf Christmas Market from the gentlemen who makes them! It is carved panels set into tracks on the base, and there are holes drilled in the base to push lights up into to light the piece!

This Santa is taking a snooze!

 It is so unique! I love it!

Well that concludes the inside of the house! As I said, I have more work to do! I need to find some spots for a few things, and find something to put in the kitchen. The rest of the house (upstairs and basement) is not decorated. I don’t think J would allow me enough decorations to decorate the whole house!

So, on to the outside! Our tastes have changed since we first started decorating. We don’t like colored lights anymore, or basically anything that is colored! We gave away a lot of our yard decorations because we just don’t like the look of them anymore. This year, we used more greenery, and the few white-lit yard decorations we already had.

The roofline of this house is hard to get to. We could get a ladder tall enough, but we could not rest it on the gutters without damaging them. There is someone we would buy to help, but not going to spend the money on it. So, we just put candles in all the windows! 🙂 I bought teardrop swags to put on the columns. The greens on the lamp post, the mailbox, and the garage lamps are all real and courtesy of our local nursery. The rest are courtesy of Michael’s! 😉

Garland on the railing and our pretty twinkle stars hanging from the roof!

The angel and spiral trees are the only yard decorations we put up this year.

Our pretty tree seen through the window!

Garage Lamp with greens

Merry Christmas!