Holiday Decor 2013

So here's our casa for 2013!

It's very similar to last year - very neutral & modern with a lot of silver, gold, & metallic finishes:

We hung some glass bulbs from the chandelier again this year.  We also added some metallic candles to our collection of glass & crystal candle holders:

We haven't had a normal size tree since our first year in the house - back in 2008.  That year we bought a real tree.  Sometime in January, Nader decided to dispose of the tree by placing the tree in it's plastic tree stand in our backyard & lighting it on fire.  True story.  Who does that?!

While we like real trees, we decided to shop around for a fake tree this time around (we didn't want Nader burning down the house this time).  We were looking for a pre-lit tree that was between 7' & 7.5' tall (our ceilings our 8').  We checked out Garden Ridge, Home Depot, Target, & Hobby Lobby.  Wouldn't you know it, the trees we liked best were always $200+.

By the end of the day we were so sick of shopping that we just decided to grab a tree from Target & be done with it - you know the feeling?  So we ended up with the pre-lit 7' Alberta Spruce tree with 300 lights.

Once we got it home & set it up, we realized we were not in love with the shape.  We were hoping for something....more full?  Maybe we can score a more realistic tree on clearance after the holidays are over.  Anyways, here it is all decorated:

The ornaments are a mix of textures, colors, & shapes.  We stuck with mostly white, silver, black, taupe, & clear glass ornaments.  Most of the glass bulbs are from Hobby Lobby.  

These white snowball looking bulbs are from World Market & the glass icicles are from Target:

The glass acorns & silver textured bulbs are from World Market:

We found these mittens @ Home Goods:

We also found our tree skirt @ Home Goods.

 It has a cable knit sweater texture & 3 little wooden toggle buttons:

We thought this silver frame with a sweater texture was perfect for the holidays too:

We turned a couple of doors into presents by adding some silver ribbon & giant bows.  We did this last year also, but we didn't have the over-sized bows.  It looks so much better & more proportional with the giant bows.  We wrapped mini LED lights around the columns & covered them with some ribbon:

Next to the columns we added a trio of round stacking boxes from IKEA.

On the right side, we set out a large apothecary jar filled with some glass bulbs

(we did this last year also, except we had it on our dining table instead):

Our media cabinet is set up similar to what we had last year, with a couple of exceptions.

We got new stockings from Kohl's (since they were 50% off):

Unfortunately, we don't have a fireplace - so we pretend thanks to the On Demand Yule Log:

We also added some gold bells in the larger apothecary jar (last year we had silver bulbs instead):

The other new addition is the silver polar bear from Home Goods:

In the kitchen, we added a pair of nutcrackers & stuck a bottle of wine in this sweater bottle cover:

We also put some bows & cookie cutters in a pair of apothecary jars:

In the front office we went crazy decorating.  We added a trio of nutcrackers (over the top, right?):

In the foyer we added a couple of metal deer - one brass & one silver:

In the half bath, we took the feathers out of the frames & replaced them with festive scrapbook paper:

That's it!  Hope you liked our home tour for 2013!

Happy Holidays!

Mel & Nader

:)