Our Polished Casual Christmas Tree

For the past two years, we went to the Christmas Tree Farm and bought a live tree for Christmas. Probably the most fun part of doing that was the actual act of taking the whole family and spending the day looking for the perfect tree, cutting it down, taking lots of cute pictures, etc. But for LC and I, that is basically where the fun ended. To be honest, we just didn’t dig the real tree that much. Shocking, I know! It was really hard to get it upright and stable – it actually fell down last year and several ornaments broke. And after it fell, we had a really hard time getting it to stand back up. I think we actually had to go out and buy a new stand. After it is stable, of course you have to water it once or twice a day. The branches are really prickly and difficult to work with, plus the heavy ornaments I have would not stay on the tree.

So last year, after the whole fiasco with the tree falling over, we said NO MORE! The day after Christmas, we went to Target and bought a real tree on clearance. And this, my friends, is that tree. Welcome to our Christmas Tree post for 2014! Well, we do have another tree downstairs in the family room that I will be sharing this month too. But this is our main tree.

As always, quite a few ornaments on this tree are Lennox ornaments that I have collected since 1992. They are cream colored with gold. And they will be on one of our trees every year, probably till I die. Funny thing about Christmas. to me, it is a lot about tradition. I have some of the same décor that I get out each year, and have been ever since my kids were babies. And I keep getting it out, more for them than me. Because they look forward to seeing it every year, and they feel like it’s just not Christmas without those certain decorations that we have always had around. I added the colorful bulbs a few years ago, and this is probably the last year I will use them on our main tree, for a while anyway. I like to keep the traditional Lennox, and change up the rest every couple of years . The lighted star on top of the tree was new to us last year. I had been doing giant bows for several years, and I decided I wanted a simple lighted star. And I am still digging it. I also added the burlap ribbon last Christmas. Still liking it too!

The main thing that is new on our tree this year, besides the tree itself, is the words “baby its cold outside”. I have seen lots of trees around blog land with words like this, and I jumped right on that bandwagon! I actually got the idea to use these particular words from Courtney at A Thoughtful Place. She has a gorgeous tree this year! And although my tree is nothing like hers really, I fell in love with those words on her tree, so I recreated them. Hers are gold glitter with red ribbon, and mine are silver glitter with jute. And she shares a tutorial for how she did them here.

The store I went to to find the letters didn’t have any large glitter letters, and I was bummed, until I found these large glittered sticker letters. So I just left the backing on instead of peeling it off, cut them out with scissors, and then cut out the middle parts of the letters using an exacto knife. Then I hot glued the words to the jut, leaving a long piece of jute on each end of each word. I did one word per string.

When it was time to hang the words, I just ties each end of the jute string to a branch, and then situated them until I liked the way they were hanging. And in case you are wondering, I hung the words last, after the rest of the tree was decorated.

And I really love the way they turned out! They add just the right whimsical touch. Now all that’s left is to get those gifts wrapped and under the tree! But first I need to actually go out and buy the gifts – yeah, that’s going to happen next weekend. I bought the cutest trio of plaid wrapping paper at Marshall’s a few weeks ago, and I can’t wait to use it!

I will be sharing my Christmas décor in bits and pieces throughout the month, so I hope you will come back! I am really loving the way my home turned out this year. I think it is much better than it has been in years past. It just might be my favorite ever! In case you missed it, you can see our brand new fireplace all decorated for Christmas here. I am madly, passionately in love with it, so please go and check it out! You can also check out my 2013 Christmas Home Tour if you like.

Have a great week!Check out my other Christmas themed posts:

Christmas entry and banister: