2015 Christmas on Main – “it doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful”

We’ve lived in tiny one bedroom apartments in South Carolina to a ranch style home in Georgia to our current home on Historic Main Street in a small town in North Carolina. All of them have been just that – home. Some days “home” looks neat and picked up while other days it looks like a lego, sword, baby doll, books and paper tornado hit our home dead center.  But that’s sort of when you know it’s a real home.

Without further commentary…….come on in. And if you’re local – and I do mean this sincerely ….come on in in real life on December 20th from 6-8pm for our annual Open House. It will be crammed with wonderfully sweet people from our church who make killer appetizers. We would love to serve you some punch.

(I won’t be so cray-cray as to list my address here but message me and if you don’t sound super creepy with demon eyes I’ll give you our address.)

The den is where we do our living – chilling, tv, gaming, movies, candy crushing, folding laundry, naps and talking. The tree in the den is our “Georgia” tree with Coke memorabilia and UGA stuff. We are from GA and even though NC is home to us now we’ll always have Georgia in our blood.

The living room is where we gather for family chats, devotions, birthday present opening, reading and Christmas morning. It’s not quite as relaxed as the den yet it’s warm and we enjoy the ambiance of the living room. Someone asked me last week the paint color of our yellow – it’s SW Anjou Pear – a yellow that my husband picked out and nailed it.  Yellows can be hard to pick but he did great.

Didn’t quite get much Christmas up in the kitchen – that strand of red berries on greenery is all I’m feeling this year. Now that I’m seeing it I do believe that baker’s rack is getting a bit “junky” as my Mother would say. “Junky” and “gap-0sis” are two decorating terms she always taught me and my sister. You don’t want too much stuff for it can go junky in a heartbeat. And to have gap-osis is to have a hole or void somewhere. I’m pretty sure we have both going on all over the place in our home.

The secretary below was a wonderful find in the North Georgia mountains. This year I decided to use all our same Christmas decorations but in different places in the house and in completely different contexts. The Byers people that have been sitting on the same Pembroke table for the last 20 Christmases are now tied into the garland. I’m trying to determine if it’s bordering tacky with a capital T or if it’s quite clever and cute. I remain unsure. Take notice there are 3 Byers people because somewhere along the way I learned you don’t decorate in even numbers (rule broken with the red berry trees on top). It’s not pleasing to the eye. See, you are really bothered right now because you are looking at two trees atop a secretary and you are subliminally bothered and agitated wishing it was only 1 or 3. Ha! Kidding.

  

This dining room is a room that is still slowly coming together. It’s by far the coldest room in the house yet we use it a lot when people come over and for parties. It turns very easily into any kind of themed party. Getting that white shag rug in there was a  huge help in warming it up. Sam’s you guys! It was a Martha Stewart rug but we got it at Sam’s last year for less than $200.

The kids rooms didn’t get decorated this year. They’ve not said a word about it and I’m soooooo glad. I’ve been secretly hoping Sophie wouldn’t remember her pink Christmas tree that is still in the attic. This is a picture from the Open House a few years ago. I always love going upstairs and seeing empty punch cups on tables, kids playing hide and go seek and girls giggling on the bed. It brings back wonderful memories of dinner parties growing up in which the kids would play for hours in their own imaginary world. I won’t tell you that one year I actually retreated from being hostess and gathered with some of the girls and we prank called their friends. Do not tell their Mothers please. I’m so mature it’s intimidating even to myself.

Talking about maturity…..I leave you with this angelic picture.

Behold the classic “nekked angel” ornament. The ornament that everyone in the family fights over to hang.

I’m sorry I leave you with this visual. Perhaps you can unsee it if you wish.

Merry Christmas Ya’ll!

Linking for the first time with The Nester – you will love her blog! I do already.