It’s officially Christmas time (only 9 days to go!!), and I can hardly believe how the days are flying by! Christmas is my absolute favorite holiday, and we’re attempting to savor every moment of it here at our house. It’s been so much fun decorating our first home for our first Christmas as husband and wife! Brad and I are both Christmas obsessed, so you can imagine how excited we were to get the house all holiday-ready.
Basically, I’m on indoor decorating duty while I left lights and outdoor decorating to Brad…(His Christmas idol is pretty much Clark Griswold sooo you can probably imagine the light expectations he’s set for himself!) Luckily, our fireplace remodel was finished just in time for the holidays, and I couldn’t wait to begin decorating this pretty new section of our house for Christmas! I’ve been playing around with the shelf and mantle décor and changing things up every so often, but I think I’ve finally gotten it to a point that I’ll keep for the remainder of the holiday season (we’ll see at least). So today I thought I’d share with you our new fireplace and shelves all decorated for the holidays! I hope you enjoy and can find some inspo or ideas for your own homes for the holidays!
Sources for where you can find some of my Christmas décor will be provided throughout the post if you’re interested! If something isn’t listed, check my last post about our fireplace remodel for some additional links to some of our everyday décor items.
A few weeks ago I went to a little Christmas decorating workshop with my sister-in-law at the garden center down the road from her house, and that was all the inspiration we needed to start loading up on the greenery for our homes! I’ve been slowly working on bringing at least a little bit of Christmas greenery into each room, but the first place I started was the mantle in the living room. I ended up decorating it two slightly different ways before I settled on my final mantle décor.
Mantle Version #1
I wanted the greenery to drape a little bit down the front of the mantle to give it a loose and organic look. I started off by just using the real greenery that I had, including a little of our Christmas tree trimmings and some Leyland cypress that I bought from the garden center to give it that relaxed and natural look that I was aiming for. To add a little extra decoration, I arranged a few ornaments in groups across the top of the mantle with a gold “H” in the middle and kept it that way for a few days…
Mantle Version #2 (Final Version)
I ended up changing the mantle up a little bit a few days later. I wanted to see what it would look like with a little more dimension and remembered what we had learned from that Christmas decorating workshop: start out using faux garland then mix in your real greenery. This makes it easier to change out your greens and give your mantle a little refresh when your foliage begins to dry out over the course of the holiday season.
I also learned that greenery typically will only last about 10 days inside before it dries out. And most of us intend for our Christmas decorations to last a bit longer than 10 days! So if you’re using real greenery, this is definitely a useful method for refreshing your greens without having to completely start over on all your decorations.
I wanted the option to light up the mantle at night, so we bought a faux greenery garland that already included lights from Michaels, and then I began adding in my greenery! Super easy and no extra wiring or anything necessary!
I kind of liked the simple greenery look without too many frills, but I kept a few ornaments and the gold “H” in the middle just to give it a little extra something.
Galvanized Ornaments // Green Pom Pom Stocking // Plaid Black and White Stockings // Basic Stocking Holders
I love all the fun stocking holders out there, and I’m sure I’ll play around with some more creative ones in the future, but this year I just wanted something simple, clean and modern for our “modern farmhouse style” fireplace. I bought some basic black stocking holders and three adorable stockings from the new Hearth & Hand line at Target then added a couple of bells to the two outer white stockings to add in a few extra gold touches.
P.S. You’ll begin to realize how obsessed I am with this new line as I continue to share my holiday décor with you… A LOT of my new Christmas decorations are from the Hearth & Hand line…and I love them all. Anyone else a fan of Chip and Joanna Gaines?!
Once I changed out the mantle, I decided to use more ornaments elsewhere. For instance, on the hearth, I filled my Hearth & Hand house lantern from Target with ornaments that matched the color palette I was using and included some fairy lights to add a fun and festive pop of color + light to the fireplace.
Another element I added to the hearth décor was this three toned basket that I fell in love with at the HomeGoods section of our local TJMaxx. I’m loving using baskets these days in my decorating… They are the perfect natural, casual, cozy and on trend addition to your holiday décor or just home décor in general in my opinion. You can use them to store just about anything in for any room. During Christmas time, they are especially useful for storing all sorts of holiday essentials from fireplace wood, blankets, pillows, and plants to (in this case) wrapping paper!
For my last hearth decoration I used a gold vase that I bought at the Nashville flea market to display some of my pretty faux magnolia flowers, adding in some of the greenery that I used for the mantle to make a pretty organic looking and Christmas-inspired floral arrangement.
I placed a pouf that I bought on sale from Nordstrom a while back in front of the fireplace and draped across my fave patterned indigo blanket (which you’ve probably seen a few times if you’ve followed my other posts!) With a massive Christmas tree taking up half of the room, the furniture had to be rearranged a bit. We ended up removing the bigger wicker chairs that were originally in the room for the time being, so we really needed all the extra seating that we could get! Adding a pouf was the perfect way to add a little extra seating while adding an extra cozy vibe to the the fireplace. It also served as the perfect platform to set a little tray that could be filled with all the necessary fireside cuddling essentials like hot cocoa, sweet snacks, wine…(you get the idea.)
Black House Lantern // Pouf // Wood and Galvanized Hexagon Tray // Buffalo Check Mugs // Marble Dipping Bowl // Olive Wood Dipping Bowl // Cream X Patterned Ornaments // Embroidered Cream X Patterned Kitchen Towel // Faux Magnolia Bloom Stems
Not wanting to have to completely replace and redo all of the shelf décor that I had so recently collected and arranged to my taste, I decided the best way to style my shelves for Christmas would be to use Christmas décor that fit or coordinated with the style of my current décor. This meant styling and using décor that maintained that kind of uncluttered simplicity I had attempted to achieve in my original shelf styling with a blend of natural, modern, rustic and personalized décor elements. It also meant a neutral color palette with whites, grays, blues, pops of black and some metallic accents like brass and pewter.
I added a little green to the color scheme and a few Christmas touches to some of the existing décor such as placing ornaments in the wood bowls, filling the terrarium with greenery and fairy lights, and adding other touches of greenery here and there throughout the décor as well.
Galvanized Goat Book Ends // Wood Nesting Houses // Black House Bud Vase // Brass Pressed Glass Photo Frames // Embroidered X Patterned Throw Pillow // Knit Wool Black and White Throw Pillow (in basket) // Brass Vintage Bell
Now it’s time to cozy up by the fireplace—Pacey has already claimed his spot!
I hope you enjoyed this little snippet of our home all decorated for Christmas! Feel free to reach out for any questions and/or comments you might have! Hope everyone is enjoying the holidays so far!! 🙂
<3 Kelsey