* Aka, the moment I’ve been waiting for since, oh, the day we moved on. There is something extra special to me about decorating a home for your first vacation season. It’s really there with seeing everything popping up outside during the first spring in a new house (I’m basically shouting out the window as if I were an anchor at a soccer match: “On the left it’s a patch of davofoodles! Nobody saw that coming !!” But back To our vacation home tour. It looks very cute and cheerful here. Since the move also included some serious downsizing and simplification (John last week shared an update on that), he promised to be an interesting exercise in what we could go in our smaller home As I heard on our podcast a while ago, we donated our beloved Christmas tree after squeezing it into the capsule and getting it all the way here, because we realized that such a wide tree (it has a 5’5 base – so it was thick) really didn’t have a place to Installing it in one room in our house does not obstruct the flow of things severely. We left a lot of things at that point, so it was surprisingly easy to let go of that as well. Initially we were just playing around with the idea of having a real tree this year. After all, you don’t have to. Stocking a real tree, right ?! Sounds like a minimalist dream Ni! That is, until we realized you still stocked the easel, lights, and ornaments, so it’s less but nothing … and when we explored the fresh, native tree options, they were all 6 wide at the base! If it was tight enough for us, it was often only 4 long. Young kids. That’s how I ended up with this cheerful little tree full of felt ornaments and lights upstairs. Isn’t she cute? It was only $ 20 from the garden center and I can plant it again when the season is over. We still wanted a bigger tree, so we decided to consider one more fake option, and went looking for a more realistic, narrower but not too short tree for our new home. It was a real stand by Goldilocks (“This tree is the perfect height but is too wide,” “This tree is the perfect width but it is too short,” “This tree is the perfect size but looks fake,” etc, etc.). It’s downstairs near our bedroom fireplace, and I know you probably expected it to be upstairs in the family room because we expected to put it in there … but after trying it upstairs and here, I felt it was better to have a little glowing tree upstairs , And the big tree here by the fireplace (where we also like to add a shelf for our socks). We all hang out in this room most evenings with the fireplace “on” (aka: lighting candles), and it might have been just years of having a tree next to the fireplace in our last home, but it just seemed right to us. You can also see it glow from the street through that window at the top right (no upstairs window will really allow the same street effect since it’s really invisible due to the position of the deck), so that’s a nice bonus too. As for actual tree details, last weekend we bought this 6.5-foot tree for $ 99 (it was the last tree they had – which felt like a very lucky break!). Sadly, the tree is completely out of stock online now, but if you’re looking for something similar this looks very close and has great reviews. I wish I had taken a more detailed shot, but as you can see below, the branches have this very realistic design, and it’s my favorite. Basically, if you’re standing face to face in front of my tree, I want you to touch it and still don’t think it’s fake. I’m going to do an IG story where I get close, but it rivals the last tree in super realism, which I love. The tree actually comes “potted” in a synthetic cement planter that was fine but the “English Garden” seemed to me quite a bit (you can see it in this product shot), so we put it in this basket that we actually had to warm things up and add texture (technically it is Ottoman woven storage, no top). As you can see below, this position still gives us enough space to walk behind it to close the curtains or grab something in the closet under the window – and unlike our last house, we have to actually decorate all of its sides, because half is not pushed into the corner … … which means Every single decoration used to be on our larger tree would match that tree! Oh happy day! One of the things I really dreaded was having to scale down our decorations significantly (since a lot of them are meaningful or handmade, I knew that would be a lot harder than giving up a fake tree for example). So, to bring this person up and decorate them as a family, and realize that everything fits … it was a magical moment. We transported one big plastic box of holiday stuff, which we stored in our kitchen utensil cabinet (this cabinet also has our HVAC system, so it’s a mixture – it’s also where we keep paint cans) – so a lot of other things we have Alternating items we have owned for years. We actually got that white planter that holds a “Christmas bush” and a wooden dough bowl with glossy trimmings and some white bottle trees that just came out of storage plus all the felt decorations on this little tree. In other words: We didn’t buy anything new for this holiday season except for the new faux tree downstairs and this fresh tree upstairs. The amazing thing about our tree downstairs is that it splits into three smaller pieces that match our bed! And since we’re planning to plant this real tree outside, we know we’ll be able to store everything when January arrives. I’m so glad we didn’t oversold so many things that January would be tough to stock up on. It’s like we passed kind of a smaller test this first holiday season. And it still looks pretty festive here. This little tree has a lot of felt ornaments kids have collected over the years, just like the “upstairs tree” we used to decorate in the bonus room in our last home. So this might be another reason why the little tree on the top floor looks right to us – this is how it was in our last home too! It sits at a console table near desks where our kids do their schoolwork, so they love being in their “zone” – and since we’re all at home all day / every day (yes, at home the learning continues!), We light it every morning and don’t turn it off until time Sleep. You will feel relaxed knowing that I have found places for the rest of my animals from feather trees, glass, wood and glass bottle. So every room whispered “It’s festive here” – even the bathroom. This tiny window ledge features a free, evergreen branch on the outside in a golden cup, along with a simple candle and two small ceramic trees from years ago (here’s something similar). In the kitchen, I added trees to the two white shelving systems out there (can you spot all 6 in the image below?). If you are looking for similar glowing trees, these are great. And this shop has some beautiful woody trees like the three pink trees above. And this is a beautiful feather tree, too. Anyway on this side of the room, we have two other bottle brush trees on the other shelf, and we moved to the opposite wall, and by pure chance – we have our dwarf “Raychard” (named many years ago by a daughter) planting himself there yesterday. Just when you thought we’d finished using bottle trees, there’s one on the kitchen table … and a couple of shiny glass trees on the entry table, which are also pretty and visible from the outside when lit in the evening (they have little flashing lights that run on a battery inside). I mentioned we love adding a baby socks rack over the fireplace, but in the meantime, we’ve just rolled it over the door handles to the laundry corner. My goal is a new shelf before the holiday (even if it’s just a temporary shelf for now) – so there might be an update on that soon if we can get it together. You might have noticed through the front door that “spruce shoes” still appeared on the front porch (I just bought cute rubber boots and added evergreen branches). This is their fifth year with us and the third balcony they honored (including our last home and our beach house where they spent their last holiday season). The only development this year is that they hang out by a lemon tree and are sometimes visited by little lizards. What a strange life they lead. We currently don’t have a wreath because, for obvious reasons, I haven’t been able to go to this wreath-making event in Richmond with my favorite ladies (an annual tradition maybe 5 years?). But I ordered a wreath shape (this template) to try out my DIY version using leaves from the many magnolia trees we have around our home. And I’m really excited about it. So stay tuned. It could be amazing, it could be a disaster – we’ll see. Away from those little red shoes, the only other thing we’re getting outside now, beyond the year-round string lights that you can see on the right of this photo, is the tree we rolled up using leftover string lights he already had (these are the outdoor lights that the eyes of John own). We used to wrap it around trees on either side of the front porch in our last house, so with so many indoor / outdoor lights at our disposal John switched it on by ear and that was the result. I think it is very beautiful. As if I might want to keep them year-round like our string lights. This is where we arrived on our first visit to decorate this holiday home. With a magnolia wreath and a rack for socks hopefully it’s coming soon. And maybe some live cordon that we can place over a window or two. We also put our battery powered candles in every window of course (our candles are not available but these are the same) – so I guess that’s an extra flair for the outdoors. But seriously, who’s with me to make this look year-round …? Note: To see how we decorated our last Christmas home, this post has all the details. Here’s a complete summary of how to decorate a pink holiday home too. * This post contains affiliate links * More posts from Young House Love
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