I used to put up our Christmas tree, string the lights, and decorate it all in one day, but I’ve learned I enjoy it more if I do it in stages.  When I’m not pushing to get it all done, I feel more freedom to experiment and play if I want to.  The funny thing is that I didn’t get super creative with our tree this year, even with that extra time.  I just made a couple of very small changes, but I have a lot of ideas for what I want to do next year!  I need to make notes for myself so I remember when I put the tree up, almost a year from now! One addition I made was adding two strands (52 ft, 800 bulbs) of micro-LED/cluster lights to the traditional incandescent lights.  THESE are the ones I bought.  I was so thankful I strung the

As I’ve been working on decorating for Christmas this year, I thought it would be fun to look at pictures of our “main” Christmas tree through the years.  I am now wishing I had done that before I decorated our tree for this year, because I found so much inspiration from things I’ve done in previous years.  I love it when that happens! It was a little challenging to find pictures of Christmas trees from my early years of blogging, but I was able to find trees back to 2011.  So, let’s take a little tour, and maybe you’ll find some new/old inspiration there as well… 2024 Other than a few minor tweaks, our tree is pretty much the same this year as it was last year.  I’ll share a fresh picture of it, though, in its own post.  This tree is the Balsam Hill 8′ Noble Fir.  It was

I really loved my Christmas decorating last year, so I will probably do something very similar this year.  It felt classic and beautiful, and looking back over the pictures makes me excited to pull out the bins and deck the halls.  Well, almost.  But, while I’m thinking about it and while you might be planning and shopping, and before everything Christmas is sold out, I wanted to share my favorite realistic faux evergreens for Christmas and winter decorating. Years ago, I purged any artificial greens we had and only used live greenery and trees for several years.  But after a couple of trees dried out and died before Christmas (ugh), and we then moved to a house with forced-air heat (that dried live greens to a crisp), I was forced to revisit them.  While I don’t love storing more Christmas decor in more bins, it is nice to make the