December 12, 2009

Christmas Tour 2009

Christmas Tour of Homes with The Nester


Welcome to my little spot on the Christmas tour of homes. I hope you're enjoying the different tours at The Nester's place. I think it's fitting that the tour moved this year, because I moved too (my house, that is!) If you want to see what Christmas looked like at our old house, you can check it out here. But enough of that - here you are standing outside while I'm yapping. Come on in, won't you?
This is what you see immediately after coming in the front door. Hopefully I'll have a few more cards up on display before too long. I hope to change a lot at my house during the upcoming year. The wallpaper here and the metal part of the light fixture are two things that I hope to say goodbye to soon.
Here is a better view of the Christmas village under the mirror. A box of Christmas decorations got displaced in our recent move, so my village has a few bare spots. I sure hope I find the box before next Christmas!
Across from the mirror is the front room. These presents will find their way under the tree Christmas Eve, but for now they serve as decoration for my piano. When we moved, we doubled our house size, which means I have a lot more space to decorate for Christmas. I'm looking forward to the after-Christmas sales this year!
Moving on to the living room, the remainder of what I can find of my Christmas village is behind the couch. It's a bit tricky finding places to put my village where small hands won't be tempted.
The top of our entertainment unit seemed to be a good place for our nativity set, our Advent calender, and our Jesse Tree. If you'd like more information about the Jesse Tree, you can read what I wrote about it last year here.
Next to the entertainment unit is this floor lamp, which I tried to make a bit more Christmassy. The snowman sign on the wall was one of my first Christmas decorations. I've had it since I was a freshman in college, so it's (yikes!) 10 years old.
One of my favorite things about our new house is that we finally have a fireplace! I have a wreath to hang above the mantle, but it hasn't been hung up yet.
The obligatory tree photo. DH and BB decorated the tree for me the day after Thanksgiving. Somehow, our tree has no top piece. As the tree stayed in the same box all year long, I have no explanation for this. I do, however, notice that we can fit a lot more tree in our new house... ;D

Our living room has a sliding glass door which is right next to a very large window in our kitchen. I put the stars and the snowflakes up in an attempt to make the large area more Christmassy, but I'm not crazy about the end result. I think I should probably add lots of garland to my after-Christmas shopping list.
A previous owner had a plant hook in the ceiling by the window. Since it's in the kichen, I thought some cookie cutters would be cute to hang up.

When we first married, all of our Christmas stuff was snowmen. I still have a lot of snowmen/silver and blue stuff, but the red and green is gradually taking over. In the pictures above and below, you can see my attempt to reconcile the two types of decor. Not entirely successful, but it will look better next year.

The light above the kitchen table. I've found it's pretty hard to take a decent picture of things like this.
Our Advent wreath on the kitchen table. I know that technically the white candle is supposed to appear on Christmas Eve, but I wouldn't remember to light it on Christmas Eve if I didn't see it out. Maybe in a few years when BB is old enough to remind me...
We have a long wall in our kitchen that is awaiting some shelving. In the meantime, I decorated it with some red wooden garland I bought at a yard sale last year. I topped it off with some Christmas card ornaments to hide where I affixed the garland.

On the underside of my upper kitchen cabinets, I hung some more cookie cutters using some red yard. Speaking of cabinets, I'm currently trying to decide what color I should paint my cabinets. If you have a few minutes, won't you stop by my cabinet post and give your opinion?

This is our alternative to an Advent calender. I made it out of a dollar store pizza pan with some magnets on the back. DH drew the design on for me using Sharpies. I use double stick tape to affix the Hershey kisses. This is the first year that BB has been interested in eating the Hershey kisses, which means that I'll be making another one of these for next year. Momma doesn't like sharing chocolate!
I hope you've enjoyed the tour of our house. If you come back here tomorrow, you can see the pictures that didn't make this post (aka, the ones where BB intervened).

49 comments:

  1. I love the bulbs hanging from the light..so festive!
    sandy toe

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  2. Cute! I love the advent calendar idea. Have fun with your new house!

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  3. I think the snowflakes and stars by your door/window is wonderful and just fine as-is! (And I know it has nothing to do with your Chrismtas decor, but I love the plaid curtain in back of the snowflakes, too!)

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  4. Your home is just beautiful. May many wonderful Christmas memories be made within its walls.

    Our home is having an old fashioned handmade Christmas this year. I hope you will stop by.

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  5. I love your Christmas village!! EVerything looks so pretty!! Have a merry Christmas!!

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  6. What a beautiful home! I hope you and your family enjoy Christmas in your new house. Merry Christmas!

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  7. I love your village. It's been a few years since we've put ours up, and I miss it!

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  8. Heather, I hope you are enjoying your new home! You sure have it decorated cute. : )

    Merry Christmas!

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  9. Your Christmas tree is beautiful. Wow, the decorations are fantastic.

    Have a wonderful week.

    Hope you can visit my blog.

    http://santiagotwingirls.blogspot.com/2009/12/christmas-decorations-tour-2009.html

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  10. So many cute things! I love how you used all the cookie cutters!

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  11. Loved your decorations especially what you did with the cookie cutters. Thank you for sharing
    Sue

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  12. We moved this year too!

    I love all of your unique decorations. Thanks for sharing your home with us. Merry Christmas!

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  13. I love your villages!

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  14. Enjoyed my visit....I am so happy to have a few hours to catch up on blogs...I am finally finished with trees. New pictures are up on the Christmas blog!
    http://grammyababychangeseverything.blogspot.com/ then

    read about a miracle and forward on to anyone that is feeling hopeless....Christmas is the season of miracles..

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  15. I really like the NOEL decorated shelves. So cute!

    Thanks for showing us around.
    Merry Christmas!

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  16. so cute! your advent calender is great

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  17. It all looks great! And next year sounds like it will be double the fun!

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  18. The cookie cutters are such a great idea! I think I need to steal that idea!

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  19. The hanging cookies cutters are PERFECT!! I have been trying to decorate with all of my Christmas dishes that I have acquired -- I never even thought about the cookie cutters! Thanks!!

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  20. It all looks lovely and festive. I especially like your Christmas village. Thanks for stopping by.

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  21. Ah you have a real mantle and stockings too! I am jaeleous. Love the little helper in your first picture, he is very cute!

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  22. Stopping by on the Nester home tour train! Love the use of cookie cutters! Thank you for allowing us to drop in!

    Click here for MY Christmas open house

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  23. Love seeing your nutcrackers on the fireplace... it reminded me I should have taken a picture of mine...maybe I'll put them up later this week :-D

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  24. I love the idea with the cookie cutters and red yarn. I think I may be borrowing that idea. What a great way to add a festive touch in my too small kitchen.

    Ruth

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  25. Thanks for stopping by my blog! Your house looks ready for a merry Christmas. I love the kisses advent wreath! A tip for day after Christmas shopping - I've found that Target has been the best place to start they day, at least as far as snagging the best deals - plus ours has a starbucks :-)

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  26. Love that you use cookie cutters as decorations in the kitchen! Great idea! And I love the homemade advent! Merry Christmas!

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  27. Everything is just beautiful, you have a lovely home. Love your Christmas village.
    Merry Christmas!

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  28. what a beautiful home! thanks for the lovely tour.

    xo,
    cristin

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  29. Like the advent wreath :) I don't have a wreath, just 4 mismatched candle holders!

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  30. Your house looks wonderful. Thanks for letting us take a peek!

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  31. I loved stopping by your cheerful home. Merry Christmas to you and yours.

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  32. Everything looks so festive. Thanks for sharing.

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  33. Love the hershey kisses... how do you resist?

    Merry Christmas!

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  34. love those cookie cutters!! And I do like those little villages - I just don't really have the room for them myself. Merry Christmas!

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  35. I love the cookie cutter idea! That would have been so much better than what I did. I put them up on the wall and now will have holes in the wall to patch. Or maybe I will keep them up all year! I am stopping in from Nester's Place. To see my tour click on the 'Christmas 2009' Tag on in the left sidebar!

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  36. Love your Christmas village! MERRY CHRISTMAS!

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  37. Cute. Did you make the NOEL letters?

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  38. What a creative idea with the cookie cutters! Love that! I love the snowflakes too!

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  39. Thanks for stopping by my blog. I really like your decorations. I think the mantle and the ornaments hanging from the light fixture were my favorite.

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  40. I'm really enjoying the 2009 Christmas Home Tour. Many of you are so talented and creative.
    Your decorations are so beautiful!
    Thank you for the tour.

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  41. Your home is wonderful. Since I am the original cookie monster, I love the cookie cutters. What a wonderful idea for the Advent calendar. I can see that being made for the church bazaar next year!! Thanks for the idea. Merry Christmas to you and your family.

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  42. I love what you did with the cookie cutters and the pizza pan/kiss Countdown. Way cute!
    Come on over if you get a chance!

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  43. Your mantle and tree are so pretty and I love the idea of decorating your piano! Thanks for sharing your home...

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  44. Very pretty. I also love the "Behind the Scenes" post. I totally feel the same way. :) Anywhoo...love the pizza pan idea. GREAT!

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Thank you so much for caring enough to leave a comment! I typically don't respond to each separate comment here on my blog. If you would like to ask me a question and have my reply, please feel free to e-mail me at heathershodgepodge@hotmail.com