All of our Christmas treasures were packed neatly and carefully away last year with anticipation for the Christmas seasons to follow. Inside were coordinating red, green, and gold globes, snowflakes, and bird ornaments; along with strings of lights, festive garlands, personalized stockings, gift boxes, wrapping paper, ribbon, and stocking holders.
Given our new and different space and layout, the decorating will require some creative ingenuity. Without a fireplace and mantel, we will have to find a different location to hang the stockings and the garland. Our living room is much smaller so we were mindful not to get a tree that would be too big for the space that we have.
As soon as I opened the tote of Christmas items, my husband and I pulled the glass globes out of the protective plastic packaging and put hooks on each globe for hanging. One by one, we strategically placed the globes around the tree trying to balance color and size. Our son helped us with the less breakable decorations: the snowflakes and birds. The final touch was the star for the top which our son, propped on my husband’s shoulders, happily placed on the top vertical branch.
The stockings came next. I had thought long and hard about where we could hang the stockings this year, I even considered buying and hanging a large floating shelf/mantel, but in the end we decided that our bookshelves would work well enough. Four stockings were hung with the fourth void of personalization (her name will be revealed once she is born at which point we will swap out the nameless stocking for the embroidered one).
Our decorating is not quite done, but we made a good bit of progress on the day after Thanksgiving!