{design & decor} christmas decorations

I’m still here!  With work travel, personal travel, and the whirlwind of the holidays, poor little bloggie has been neglected.  I have lots of plans for 2011, but I’ll at least leave you with this in 2010: our Christmas decorations.

Miss Stella really wanted in on a pic, so here she is out on the porch:

Outside we went simple, trading out the (dying) ferns for rosemary topiaries, hanging a fresh evergreen wreath on the door, draping fresh evergreen garland around the door frame, and putting a potted poinsettia on the chair.  {I was just reminded that the night I bought the greenery from Home Depot, I was outside potting the rosemary as it was raining buckets and I came to find out there was a tornado warning!  Definitely a first decorating for Christmas with that kind of weather!…ohhhh M’ssippi…}

The aforementioned travel and general life craziness compelled Husband to beg not to do a Christmas tree this year.  I fought a bit, but then the thought of trying to dig to the very back and very bottom of our storage unit for Christmas decorations won me over.  Instead, we did more simple greenery on the mantle and I finally ordered some stockings to hang.  I also potted some paperwhites, happy on a side table.

{I realized I haven’t really shown the “finished” pics of the living room, so here goes! – you can see that curtains are hung and rugs are down (more on the decor later), and things are painted and clean!}

This is looking straight into the living room through the new opening from the kitchen peninsula:

The mantle was sanded down and re-stained – doesn’t it look awesome now, especially bedecked in garland and stockings?!  {Ignore the bookshelf…haven’t gotten to styling that yet!}

I ordered the stockings from Pottery Barn on Cyber Monday when they had free monogramming and free shipping! – the large ones for us were only $15 and the small one for Stella was only $9.  I was so surprised how inexpensive they were!  {Don’t worry, Husband’s name is monogrammed too! – just not on the blog }

I did find my glittery Christmas trees, purchased last year from Crate & Barrel on after-Christmas clearance – love!

So that’s about the extent of our Christmas decorations!  How about you – do you go all out or keep it simple this year?

In case I don’t post again before Christmas or New Years (which, let’s face it folks, my lame posting lately points to that), MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!