Living Room Tree

How do people keep up with blogging during the holiday season? I missed the Christmas tree party over at Thrifty Decor Chick, but still wanted to share my tree. So here goes.

We had an absolutely gorgeous day for tree-getting. Seriously, we couldn't have asked for more perfect weather. It was warm, with a light snow falling and sunshine weakly shining through, just enough to create a warm glow.

We traipsed out to the back portion of the tree farm and searched carefully for the perfect tree, shaking showers of snow from evergreen boughs.



We finally settled on a full, medium height tree for the family room, and a small, narrow but full tree for the living room.




We were able to catch a ride back to the barn on the hay wagon.


We enjoyed (free!) hot chocolate in the barn while the workers sent our trees through the shaker and binder. Lincoln and I secured them to the top of our car and we merrily toted them home.

The family room tree is the one we decorate together. This one gets colored lights, (we bought new LED lights for it this year and we LOVE them), and all the ornaments collected over the years. There are ornaments that I made as a kid, ornaments my kids have made, ornaments I purchased at the Dollar Store before I was married, and colorful, rustic ornaments we've collected as a family.

The living room tree is mine to decorate. I start with all white lights. This tree gets regular small lights, a couple strings of C9 white lights, and a couple strings of candle lights that I found at Goodwill several years ago. On this tree I put some antique ornaments I purchased at an antique store this year on our anniversary trip. ( I tried to stick with colors that were similar, but I couldn't resist the train one, knowing Jesse would love it.)








I also put our glitzier ornaments here that fall into the gold, crystal, shiny, category.

I placed the Symbols of Christmas ornaments on this tree, too.



I like to juxtapose glittery ornaments with rustic, which is how these wooden bead candy canes we made this year ended up on this tree.



Plus, they look great with our set of wooden ornaments that Lincoln's step-father has made for us. For a while he was making a new one for us every year.



The whole look gets set off with some red, glittery snowflakes I bought at Walmart last year. I just can't resist throwing in some red. Plus, it helps tie in the train ornament. The base gets wrapped in red burlap.

The cat finds it cozy.

And in the same room, the piano "mantle".


*Disclaimer: Will I ever gain the patience to hide my lights cords better? This is obviously not my forte.

***Looks like I'm not too late. This is the last day!
I can't get the button to work, but here's the link to the Christmas Tree Party!