Some Christmas Love and a Reveal

I have been enjoying every second of every minute of taking in all of your spectacular Christmas decorating - the Home Tours, the How-To's, the Recipes and everything in between! It has been something I've been looking forward to all year since I starting blogging back in February. I just knew that Blogland would be especially wonderful at the Holidays. And you have NOT disappointed! There is just so much to take in and so much inspiration out there that the Holidays for me will never be the same. I will now always look forward to the great ideas I get from all of you wonderful people.

Around here though, the decorating hasn't been what my family is used to at Christmastime. I usually start decking my halls right before Thanksgiving, and then after I finish the local House Tours, I sprinkle a little more Christmas love around the house. Something has changed in me this year. I knew a while ago that I wouldn't be going crazy this season. I don't know how I knew, I just knew.

Last March, my husbands dear parents lost everything to a fire. It was right after I started blogging so I'm not quite sure if I even posted about it. How do you post about something like that anyway? I barely knew any of you yet and I guess I just didn't want to be a downer on my new blog. Of course we offered for them to live with us while the house was being fixed, but my sweet FIL has Parkinson's as well as other health issues that prevent him from going up and down the stairs. So they had been living in a hotel room. For over seven months. They just recently moved back in to what is a gorgeously rebuilt home, but it didn't have anything in it. No furniture, no pictures, no rugs, no nothing. So it didn't feel like home. So that's where I've been over the past month and a half.

I have been striving recently to establish myself as a wanna-be designer. I have taken on a few "clients", er, "friends", willing to trust me with their decorating woes. It has been fun and a good way for me to get my feet wet. It is still a work in progress and I'm still learning, but I think this is the direction the Lord wants me to go in.

My In-Laws, whom I love dearly, entrusted their whole house to me. Thanks to Craig's List and Home Goods we've been able to turn their "new" house into a home on a shoestring budget. It is all I have been able to think about since we began. They are thrilled with the results and I can't wait to share the pictures with you all. I will be doing a post soon on the big reveal of their home - please stay tuned.

So that has been the best Christmas gift to me. Being able to help these amazing people that I have come to love as my own parents is the most precious gift I have ever received. I am so grateful to them in so many ways. God is Good!

Now, here are a few pictures of what little decorating I was able to do around here. Since I only put out about half of my things, I tried to make a big statement in just a few strategic spots.

My Dining Room table all gussied up. Don't you just love apothecary jars? They make decorating for the seasons so darn easy!


My mantle. I always switch this up every year and do something different. This year I was able to incorporate the "M" I purchased from Crafts, Etc. using the gift card I won from Sherrie's blog - thanks again Sherrie!!


Last year I purchased the lighted wreath and garland from Sam's Club and I needed to hide the cord so I got the idea to use gold chargers.


These gorgeous trees I picked up at Kirkland's a few years ago and I put them on my great-grandmother's old desk.


I will be joining the Nester's Holiday House Tour on Monday so I am saving the rest of my pictures for that. But before I go, you may remember me doing this a couple weeks ago:



I cracked up after reading all of your comments. Most of you agreed with me that I am nuts. And alot of you wondered what the heck I was gonna do to fix this:

Yeah. I wondered that myself.

After much consideration and alot of reassuring my man that, yes, of course I knew what I was doing! I did this:


Then my wonderful sister helped me by rearranging the furniture to help with the flow of the room and voila!

Instant open floor plan! And I love it! So does the man. So thanks for worrying about me and I hope you like the results.
Moral of the story: don't be afraid of a little thing like a sledgehammer. We are women, hear us roar!