Party At My House!

This week I’m joining up with a bloggy Christmas par-tay. Actually, make that two Christmas parties.

The Nester’s Christmas Tour of Homes

and

Thrifty Decor Chick’s Christmas Tree tour

Quite frankly, I almost didn’t want to link up because I’ve been looking around at pictures from last year’s tour and, um…ya’ll are crafty. So if you’re visiting for the first time, there’s a couple of things you need to know:

1. I am not a decorator.
   
   and
   
   
2. I am not a photographer.

So basically what we have here are some poorly taken pictures of a poorly decorated house. Please lower your expectations accordingly :)

NOW on to the tour…

WELCOME TO MY HOME!

This is our first year in our new house *squeal* and I would have loved nothing better than to decorate it to the hilt. Unfortunately, this is also our first year living on one income instead of two, and our first Christmas with a busy just-turned-one year old--so I had neither the money to buy decorations, nor the time to make my own.

I did purchase a few new things – a ginormous tub of ornaments for the tree in the living room and…well, actually that’s it. Just the ornaments. All the other decorations are things I had in our apartment.

So. Here we are in our entryway – this is the mirror – just some garland and sparkly snowflakes.

There’s probably a setting on my camera to keep the flash from blinding you like that but, well, we’ve been over that…photo skills, zilch. Which is also probably why this next picture is so blurry…

That’s the garland on our staircase, in case you couldn’t see it through the haze…

This is our coffee table – my aunt gave me that Southern Living thingy {that would be the technical term} that’s holding the candle in the middle. I love it. It’s so versatile, I use it in different places all year round. I just stuffed some garland and some ornaments and voila!

This is our first year to purchase a real live Christmas tree. My husband calls me a Scrooge, but I’m really struggling to see the advantage of a real tree on which you have to string your own lights and vacuum up pine needles end.less.ly versus a nice, tidy, pre-lit Christmas tree that requires no daily watering. Bah, humbug!

Just squint your eyes a little bit and pretend like we’ve finished our fireplace. That’s what I do :) It’s fully operable by the way, and we’ve been enjoying it’s warmth in the frigid weather we’ve been having. Now we just have to make it look pretty. It’s coming. Promise.

And did you notice the lack of a tree skirt? Yeah – those things are ‘spensive! I’m hoping I can hit the after Christmas sales this year and get one on clearance. Or maybe I could sew one *snort* I sew about as well as I take pictures.

This console table sits on the wall in our dining room. I got it for free from a friend of mine {thanks Tiff!} I still haven’t decided if I like it there yet or not {it’s only been four *ahem* a couple of months. I am not indecisive at all}

 
What we have here is my attempt at a DIY dining room centerpiece. See, every once in awhile I’ll see something cute and I’ll utter those four sneaky little words…I could do that!  The problem is, it almost never comes out looking the way I picture it in my head. Whateva. It is what it is.
P.S. Do you see that little cutie playing peek-a-boo through the branches there?

This is the bathroom on our main floor. Our mirror isn’t always that dirty. I swear.

This is the itty bitty artificial tree we have in the basement. We bought it our first Christmas together and I’ve decided it’s going to be our “fun” tree – colored lights, handmade ornaments – this will be the tree the kids can go nuts with.

I love having ornaments on the tree like this. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside :)

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And finally – the bathroom in our basement. Even though we hardly use it, I still like decorating it.

That’s my home! Thanks for stopping by! Hopefully next year there will be some improvements. Like a tree skirt. And a finished fireplace. And some mad photography skills.

{Don’t get your hopes up.}

It’s not perfect, but as The Nester says, “It doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful.”

And I would add, “It doesn’t have to be beautiful to be special.”

The End :)