Top Posts of 2016

Letting the Lights Shine at Christmas

Well, it is almost Christmas and if you are like me you are pretty busy with everything that goes along with the season.  Hopefully, your shopping is done and you only have the "last minute" things to do.  This will be my last post before Christmas and I wanted to share the "lights of Christmas" before the all important day had passed. 

One of the things I enjoy most about Christmas is decorating my house.  I think you may already know that about me if you follow this blog at all.  Adding Christmas lights inside and outside of the house is a big part of my decorating. As I add Christmas lights all around my house there seems to be a crescendo of brightness that leads the path to Christmas Eve and Christmas itself.  I think this crescendo of light can be thought of as literal and/or symbolic and truly enhances the overall Christmas season.

Nothing says, "Welcome!", like a wreath on the front door and adding lights only makes the welcome better!

A Price-less Christmas Treasure Collection

Wow!  Ten days before Christmas!  If you are like me, you are VERY busy with the shopping, the wrapping of gifts and the festivities of the season.  Thankfully, I finished decorating my house a week ago and have thoroughly been enjoying it.  Seeing the Christmas decorations around the house that are so special to my family and me, really adds so much to my holiday season.  I am sure you have Christmas "treasures" in your home, as well.  So in that spirit, I thought I would share a few of mine with you.

My daughter, Amanda, gave me this set of whimsical Christmas plates from Pottery Barn a few years ago.  They feature Santa's eight reindeer and they make us laugh every year.

Making an Entrance

I started decorating my home for Christmas in the middle of November.  I find doing so helps me enjoy the season all the more and takes away some of the stress of the season as December approaches.  Still, it takes me weeks to finish the process.  In fact, I was still working on finishing touches just yesterday!

I am very excited to show you the foyer of my home.   I found the items below at places like Homegoods and Michael's.  I was especially inspired by the faux fur Christmas ball garland shown in the below photo.  Every decision I made for decorating this space revolved around that one piece.  Do you find that happens with you sometimes, too? 

If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen some of these photos already but, now I can finally "reveal" the whole room!

Christmastime in New York City

As I mentioned in my last post, I had the opportunity and pleasure of visiting New York City last week courtesy of my husband needing to go there on business.  By coincidence, my son also had business in the city.  So, lucky for me, he and his wife took the kids out of school for a few days and we all made a mini vacation out of it, traveling caravan style!

The traffic was horrendous since we were traveling down on the Sunday after Thanksgiving.  Bad timing on our part but, it couldn't be helped.  The husbands needed to be in New York City early Monday morning. All of the frustration was worth it after we checked into our lovely hotel and decided to take in some of the city sights.  Our hotel was on 53rd Street East and it was only a short walk to this...Saks Fifth Avenue!