If you've been following for a while, you'll likely know that Amy loves Christmas. She LOVES it. The beginning of October is the beginning of what she calls "Harry Potter Season" which lasts until Spring starts warming everything up. When it comes to decorating (which can start before Halloween), all minimalism goes out the window. When it comes to presents, she can't help but sneak about trying to find out her gifts before Christmas. She also gets so excited to gift give that she begs Kyle to open his gifts early.
Last year, we actually opened all our Christmas gifts on December 6th. We didn't even last a whole week into December. Last year was also our first Christmas married and we went so extremely overboard on gifts for each other is was MAGICAL (but also not sustainable for every year, real bummer). Feel free to watch last year's "Christmas" for gift ideas, a good time, and to watch us act like children:
Now, back to this year.
(ft. Amy's point of view)
Decorations started before Halloween with some random making. of a plain paper "Christmas village". My 9-5 job involves nannying a 4yo and 1yo and we LOVE crafts and decorating. So we started this plain and simple Christmas village out of manilla folders from the dollar store. Nothing fancy, but just a little something to start getting us thinking of winter. We all did a great job together helping put together the little buildings and trees.
Also, using dollar store manilla folders (the coloring just goes so well with our cream walls that I am not a fan of, haha) we resurrected our tree garland from last year. Each year we make a 3D Christmas tree garland/banner in the winter, pumpkins in the fall, and hearts for Valentines.
We do what we can to keep the majority of our house tasteful, simple decorations and then leave our "bigroom" for a magical explosion of Christmas insanity.
For years I thought I might go with an untraditional blue/silver Christmas theme, but it turns out that I'm truly into much more simple and old fashioned red/green with some rare muted golds thrown into the mix.
I picked up these miniature gold/red ornaments from the dollar store for 4yo to help me hang on my plants.
We ended up using them around the house and love the little simple touch it brings to our kitchen, bathroom, plants, and teeny fake Christmas trees.
Instead of using regular ornament hooks I listened to Kyle when he said we didn't need them (Idk what decorating he does)....so after two seconds of trying to use the cheap string I raided our paper clips for a more expensive hanging option *face palm*.
Now, we LOVE our bedroom. We try to keep it minimal, meaningful, and cozy. Before we got our Christmas tree we hung our Christmas tree lights around our ceiling for a fun twist to our normal bedside light. Once we got our tree we took those lights down and now rely on candles, smells, pajamas, and this little fake tree to bring Christmas into our bedroom. Surprisingly, this is just perfect and the part of our home with the littlest evidence of Christmas. I guess I still need some minimal clean slate places to appreciate.
In our hallways and entrance walls we have a few things here and there, a Christmas countdown (really it's a count-up) that 1 yo loves to play with, a wreath using our wedding greenery, a little sign and whatever Christmas amigos, pictures, boxes that 4yo and 1yo decide need to be in new spots. I think it's fun and excited for them to be able to have a little pride and ownership in their silly ideas.
Speaking of silly decorations, here is Kyle's special most recent contribution:
He's a keeper ;)
Now for the ultimate Christmas explosion and eyesore of our home....our "bigroom".....I love it.
I made this epic Christmas cottage for the little ones. Sparkly snow roof, windows with shutters and window boxes, our Santa mailbox, wallpaper for their very own Thankful wall (in November we trace and cut out one of our hands everyday and write something we're thankful for on it before posting on the wall), their own fireplace, chimney, Christmas tree, Christmas stuffies, etc. It has been a real hit and I'm just as obsessed with it as the kiddos. I love that they get to decorate the inside for their own little Christmas. When we setup our Christmas trees with their family we then had a hot chocolate party and 4yo got to eat their snacks in here. Magical.
We LOVE our Santa mailbox, not everyone has a Santa mailbox but we're lucky enough t0 be on great times with the guy. Santa get's so many letters each year that he has many different addresses you can write to; our favorite is
at 1234 Candy Cane Lane! This little Santa (left) was a decoration from my childhood and he fits perfectly popping our of our chimney, hahahaha!
Now, before the Christmas Cottage, there was a watercolor gingerbread mural. This was so fun to paint and the kids love it--it's also a great little backdrop for pictures. Here's a picture of when I moved it next to the tree and used some heavy duty painters tape to help it keep from the initial curling. It was another fun little evening project and I love how it feels in the space.
And before the gingerbread mural, there was our Christmas Kitchen. Snowflake chains turned into a snowflake ceiling--this was pretty much the exact same thing I would do as a child. I would decorate my room like this and it was a very big deal to me. We have a sticky wall (contact paper) that we put up a few months ago (not Christmas relate) and next to it we *used* to have a felt snowman and gingerbread with felt pieces to decorate...but then they got snookered into hanging on the wall of the Christmas cottage :)
One of my ALL time FAVORITE Christmas traditions is drying oranges. Either for a garland, or this year, for hanging on the Christmas tree. I found the most beautiful oranges and I'm currently drying them, right now! They are going to be the most perfect orange slices ever!
Our beautiful perfect little tree. He is so little and bushy that we couldn't even bring ourselves to do any trimming or shaping. Last year, we had red/green/white lights on our tree, this year we opted for white and draped our colored lights around the perimeter of the room (and somehow I didn't get a picture of them!). I can't wait to put up our orange slices to add a pop of color to our mostly cream ornament collection.
We love Christmas around here and can't wait for more festivities to take place! Bring us all the baked goods, cozy nights, and Christmas joy. Happy Holidays from the Malcoms!
Can't wait to make this years video :)
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