I wanted the kitchen to feel homey and lived in (minus cereal bowls that have been sitting out for hours) so I wanted more traditional Christmas decor.

 Since Ashleigh was at my house a few weeks before the tour, I begged for her to help me make a little gingerbread village with me.   She cut various sized house fronts and we stood them up in sugar in the jars.   And on the other side, more gingerbread goodness.  My house smelled divine with all of the gingerbread.

The view from the other side of the kitchen with my old fashioned Christmas tree.  My kids think ornaments come from Target and had never strung popcorn or cranberries.  So we went old school with the orange slices, gingerbread/applesauce ornaments, and a popcorn and cranberry garland.  I did most of this with my 10 year old one night when everyone else was gone and I’m so glad we could share that experience.  And I’m still grateful for Target ornaments.

My happy Costco poinsettias on my back porch.  The band boosters provided delicious snacks at each home on the tour and a portion of the band was playing live Christmas music outside.  Here are some of the talented musicians in our yard, only one of which I can claim.

Across from the kitchen is the family room which has these fantastic built-ins and I used them to display my collection of nativities.  I love each of them so much and they had their own little happy shelf to sit on.

Marshall’s trees, Hobby Lobby tray, World Market vase and stems. 

I always have my angel tree in the living room and it stays pretty much gold, silver and sparkly every year.

Guys, we need to make Ashleigh post about her signature wrapping every year.  It’s perfect and uniform and I love it.   Mine is not perfect or uniform, but I like it.  We confessed this way back in 2009 at the beginning of blogging in this post but it’s still funny (to me)

These nativities are like children, I can’t choose a favorite!!

Garland is from TaiPan Trading with berries added in.  Trees and deer are from Hobby Lobby and napkins are from Target.

The music room is fabulous because it has clear glass doors.  I love music in my home but there have been times while talking to Ashleigh on the phone that she asks if my head is literally inside the piano.  I have some robust pianists in my house and I still get a lovely ambiance with the door closed.

I borrowed this tree from a friend and it already had pinecones on it so I did some more natural elements and ornaments, a scrap of burlap around the base, twinkling lights and some ornaments from Michaels that I think I was supposed to paint or craft on but never did.

Ashleigh made us this candle 6 years ago and it’s still one of my favorite things.  You can read more about it here

Ashleigh is a firm believer in fresh garland from Costco and I am too.  It can be messy so have your vacuum handy but soooo worth it.

Little dude’s room is first upstairs and he already has a superhero room so he definitely needed a superhero tree.  I used blue lights on the tree, and a scrap of red velvety material for the skirt.  I loved that one of his transformer shields was in the shape of a star so it graced the top.

Next was the boys’ bathroom and for the record I think bathrooms are weird and hard to decorate for Christmas.  But, we did our best with some red towels, and boyish, rustic decorations.

This room belongs to my 14 year old trombone player and he doesn’t have a a lot (any) opinions about his room.  Mostly he wants to leave his giant shoes on the floor.  So, I did whatever I wanted, which was this Ralph Lauren denim wall treatment.  It was so easy, and the whole wall took about 4 hours, plus drying time in between the different panels.  I just went to the Ralph Lauren website to find a local dealer and followed their instructions.    There are different colors of denim and the employee at Home Depot knew nothing about it and there were no paint chips.  I used the website to tell him the name of the color to look up.  I used the base color already in the room which is a light grey and the denim color I used for the glaze is called Aged Navy just FYI.

I bought this tree on clearance last year at Kohls and its one they use to display their ornaments for sale.  I love that it is so different and sparse and I hoped wouldn’t be too embarrassing for my son.

The other side of the hallway was this great NOEL sign I borrowed from my friend.  She made it herself by putting brackets on the back of the giant cardboard letters for a knock off Pottery Barn look.  So genius!

Next up is the game room which I wanted to be as comfortable as we all are when we snuggle up on the big couch for a movie.   The tree is completely filled with ornaments the kids have made through the years and the ones they choose each year when we go together as a family.  They decorate it, they love it and I don’t need to exercise control over it.  I did some blogging confessions about it in this post.

I displayed my mom’s nutcracker collection here and in the kitchen glass cabinets.   I laughed as I unwrapped each one to see some tags which were very authentic nutcrackers and others from the hallmark store which I can remember buying for her when I was a teenager for $10 because mom collected nutcrackers so she must want this one for Christmas.

This daughter’s room kind of evolved when I saw these blush and feather trees at Joann.   I knew I needed them somewhere!

The girls have a jack and jill bathroom so they each have their own sink but a common shower and toilet.  The mirrors, knobs and light fixtures are girly just like they are!

This is my 10 year old’s room and we decided to wrap some fake gifts and hang some ornaments from the ceiling.  Mama’s running out of time and money, honey!!

This is a little alcove in front of my bedroom and this Santa guy needed to go here.  This is Ashleigh’s artwork and I loooove it.  She wrote about it here .  She was gracious enough to part with him for one Christmas season.

My room is already pretty neutral so I kept the tree that way as well.  I got the feather boas on sale at Goodwill after Halloween and they were a perfect way to fill the tree with cheap snowy goodness.

The tree skirt is a blanket from Target, my desk is from Pottery Barn.    The paint color in this room and several other rooms is Sherwin Williams “Sea Salt”

My husband was really confused as to how he was going to see to shave in the morning, but I convinced him the wreaths were for a good cause.  As were all of the trips to craft stores.

I  didn’t decorate my shower for Christmas but I think its pretty so here you go.

And as you exit my bedroom we are back to the beginning.  Thanks for taking the tour with the rest of the people who bought a ticket.  There were 4 other houses on the tour and mine was the least decorated.  Ashleigh doesn’t believe me but its true.  The great thing is that all of the styles were different and each homeowner was happy with all of their own touches!  I don’t want fake snow and little figurines on every surface but someone else does and I’m so happy for them.