Decking the halls with roo.

A few weeks ago, in response to a friend's post about Christmas trees and kittycat destruction, I wrote:

That's one of the many reasons we're going treeless this year.

But... my garland looks pretty awesome. The nice French Canadian woman selling trees around the corner from me made me some, when I couldn't find any I liked. Turns out she doesn't get paid until X-mas eve, so doing little custom orders on the side gets her food money while she's here. I think she used off-cuts from the trees to make it.

I bought a wreath she made, too, and got some ribbon and some jingle bells and stuff from the local party store to decorate it. I finished that tonight and hung it.

Tomorrow I want to make some pretty sprays of holly and pine, and hang stockings, and maybe some ornaments, etc., etc. We'll see what strikes my fancy, and what I can get done in and around taking care of Sprog and other business.

But the apartment smells fantastic, Fiona is going crazy for the pine needles I haven't managed to sweep away, and it is definitely beginning to look a lot like Xmas around here!

I'll see if I can get some good pictures, once I've done a bit more, and maybe actually cleaned the rest of the apartment somewhat.

Well, I got some photos of my decorations.

They make me really happy. The greenery is real, so it smells nice-- almost like having a tree. And I had fun putting everything up.

A little caveat-- we're on a tight budget this year, so I'm working mostly with what we have kicking around. And the decorations were chosen largely by what the cat and the baby couldn't reach and/or ingest and/or destroy. And my apartment is a mess. I'd like to act like that's just a recent thing, but... no.

Anyway. On with the tour!

We'll start off in our dining area, looking south into the living room/work area:

Here's what's on top of our TV:


Those little shoes were there already. I love them (they have a little skull and crossbones embroidered on the heels), but they fall off really easily, so I've been keeping them there. I don't know why. But I thought I remembered that some people somewhere fill shoes with goodies instead of stockings, so, well, there it is.

The wind-up toys are gifts from J's parents. The little wagon is from my childhood tree. And the candle smells like pine, but in a nice way. Not overwhelming.

The next two are images of the garland in the arch, from other angles. There's a spray of fir (?) and holly that I made, that looks better in real life than in photographs (it's too dark), and much baby gear. And you can also see my kitty.

Here are two little vignettes from the living room:

Now, panning from the living area into the dining area:

I hung some stockings we got years ago from my in-laws,
in this little nook between the bedroom and the bath:


(those are cards from Sprog's great-grandmother.)

There are more stocking in our tiny foyer, but my favorite is our little-est one, built from the remaining half of a pair, whose buddy got lost in the laundry:


Phew! That's all I've got! Or at least all I'm gonna show.
(Thank you Baby Christmas Jesus for that, am I right?)

Anyway, I had fun.
Merry X-mas, everyone!
May your halls be decked with joy!

Comments

[Kathi]

You did a great job giving your small space a little holiday spirit. Even though we have room in our house, we don't have a lot of shelves to decorate on. Next year, though, I'll have to remember the pine greenery. We definitely have a couple of bookshelves that we could drape that over.

[mayberry]

Everything looks nice and Christmassy! We have a garland over a big mirror on our mantel. It makes a terrible mess, but we love it anyway.

[roo]

Thanks, you two.

Kathi, I bet you have a lot of free-range pine in your neighborhood you could "liberate" fir the task.

I used to love tromping through the woods with Mom and my sister, collecting pines for decorating the house and making wreaths.

[roo]

Heh. I didn't even intend the pun. ^

[Kathi]

I made some of these to hang in our house. They're lovely. I thought of you while making them. They're so easy, and can be made smaller.

http://homewiththeboys.net/big-beautiful-paper-snowflakes-tutorial/

[tracey]

I'm late with comments because I was gone visiting the in-laws (sigh), but I think your house looks lovely and very festive! Our tree still has all the paper decorations I've made over the years when money has been tight. Now that there has been a *bit* more this year to spend on decorations, etc., I find I still prefer all the paper ones anyway.