Monday 7 December 2009

It's Up!



Hope you all had a great weekend! Ours was very well-balanced with a bit of everything going on. We got the tree up on Friday night amidst great excitement as the boys were totally enthralled with watching the FIFA World Cup Draw & planning which matches we will be watching in Durban next June {as South Africa is the host nation}.

We have 2 trees up each year - both artificial unfortunately - I would LOVE a real fir but they aren't easily acquired here... I sure do miss the smell. We have a mini tree {pictured above} that we put in a pot on a little table in the dining room & a maxi one that we clear a corner in the lounge for.

I store all our Christmas decorations in ziplock bags, separated according to type & colour, in a plastic wheelie bin container that lives on the top of our bedroom cupboards. This makes decorating simple as nothing gets entertwined & tangled together & we can easily choose what to use. We never end up using it all - less is more after all...

We have a very long strand of white intermittently flashing lights that we wrap around the tree before adding any decorations & a shorter strand of coloured ones that we run from the plug across the back of the couch to the tree. We've already really enjoyed sitting in the lounge with the lights off just enjoying the twinkling ;-D

These two {above} were totally entranced with the goings on & very interested to see that we were actually putting two trees in the house, LOL ...It wasn't long before they thought it would be interesting to climb up the little one, that then toppled right off it's little table & onto the floor, giving them both the fright of their lives! Fortunately most of the decorations remained on the tree so it wasn't a huge job to re-erect it. I definitely don't think they'll try that again...

Cami was beside herself with excitement whilst Chelsea was a less than willing assistant as she is loathe to help me because {she says} I always "re-do" what she does {it's more a case of getting it right LOL!} but this time she was chuffed because she did a great job & I have left it exactly as is. While the girls worked on the tree I did up the dining room & our "mantle" {counter} - photos to follow in another post ;-D


One of the branches had disattached itself & rather than putting it back on we let Cami keep it because she found it very amusing to pose as the Statue of Liberty with it all night...hehehe...

While Chelsea was still hard at work Cami found another good use for the wreath she made at school last year...

We have red as the accent colour in our lounge all year round so it automatically looks festive when combined with all our Christmas paraphernalia.

I have bought 4 big rolls of gift wrap - all in the simple gold print {with white Christmas tree design} so that all our gifts will be uniform & make for a good photo op LOL!

There you have it! We stuck with only one colour tinsel this year {green} & 3 types of ornaments:- 1) The green/gold & green/red hand-made baubles 2} the red/green/gold handmade {by moi} bows & 3} The gold & white Santas {fun for the kids} so it's just the right balance of design statement v/s homely me thinks...

How's your home looking? Transformed yet?




9 comments:

Vicki said...

Very nice it is too - LOL at your wrapping paper all matching! I have each person with their own matching. Yes our house is transformed.

Stefanie said...

I love your idea of the ziploc bags...why haven't I thought of that before.
I decided on a gold and cream theme (actually I wanted bronze and ice-blue but couldn't find any baubles in my colour sceme.
I too have 6m rolls of gold and cream wrapping paper that I got from Edgars of all places.
Will be decorating soon, don't feel like it yet though.

Lynette Jacobs said...

Beautiful...

...and now not yet done!

Shayne said...

So pretty.

Ours is going up next weekend when my girls are back home.

Jessy Christopher said...

That is one great Christmas tree!! We have put up ours last weekend. Hubby was excited putting the tree up. Lol!! My two cats were overwhelmed with the ornaments & lights but so far so good they have not bring the tree down. Lol!!

tania said...

there is something for you on my blog.

Pearl said...

Lovely tree you definitely have there !

I'm not much into the festive decorations at all I'm afraid ! Yes go ahead & call me Christmas Scrooge too I don't mind ! ;)

Congratulations are in order , Helen ! You're the Nov winner over at the Scrappiest ! So happy for you & that you've patiently played along ! woohoo !

Ella Swan said...

Woo Hoo I'm so chuffed I won at The Scrappiest Pearl - thanks for letting me know! I love to play along even if I don't win as they have some of the nicest sketches IMO...I received my 2 October raks today & boy are they cool - got the whole PP Amber Road Line & Lily Bee embellies (remember your black tulle flower, etc) & 2 brand new MME lines & die-cuts! This challenge thing is so worth it when here those prizes would cots R400 (USD50) to buy & would only be here in a couple of years if ever. Vicki you're paper per person is really a better idea than mine, all matching, come to think of it, I should try that, at least they are easily identifiable then - who's is who's - but it is also fun for the kids not knowing...Stef I think we have the same paper - mine was from CNA which is part of the Edgars group - Jessy watch out for those cats I tell ya! Mine go crazy every night when we switch the lights on & are now trying to "catch them" - oh dear - lol!!!

topkatnz said...

Christmas has not arrived at our house yet - but we are thinking of going the real tree this year - and they can't be put up toooo far ahead - well, that's our story anyways!!heehee