For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to have a staircase with pretty railings, bannisters, and a newel post.  Specific, I know, but I just have a thing for staircases.  Maybe that came from growing up in small, military apartments… Well, I finally get to live in a house with an awesome staircase and I was so excited about decorating it for Christmas. I swagged cedar garland along the rail, using some green twine-covered florist wire to secure it in place.  I also wrapped the garland with the  and added my mini-stocking advent calendar along the top bannister. The rocking horse got its usual laurel wreath around his neck, too. Now, as beautiful as this looks, it has been a mess!  The greens have been shedding every day, so I have to keep on it with a hand-held vacuum.  Fun times!  I might be going faux next year. I’m

I usually don’t put up my tree before Thanksgiving, but this year, I had some Christmas posts I committed to and putting up a tree was a part of that.  I’m no stranger to setting up a tree at odd times, though.  And late November isn’t odd compared to some of the times I’ve had a tree up.  One year, I had our tree up until February (for a magazine shoot), and then another one set up in April (for freelance projects), and then again in September (for retail), and finally in December for, you know, actual Christmas. Needless to say, my boys, who were quite young at the time, were a bit confused. So, back to this year’s tree.  I started with the wool pom-pom garlands (which I have collected over the years.)  The tiny ones were from , maybe three years ago.  The larger poms are from and

Let me just say that I’m a big fan of live trees.  I am, however, not a fan when they dry out and look like this two days before Christmas… The branches that were once strong and up-turned, were sagging to the point that the garland and ornaments were sliding off.  And this was with proper watering, trimming the trunk after bringing it home, buying it freshly cut, adding sugar to the water, etc. Not only did that one die, but our two other smaller trees died as well – a lesser issue, since our presents weren’t going to circle them on Christmas morning, but still a bummer. We replaced our tree two days before Christmas, but I immediately started browsing the Balsam Hill website for realistic-looking artificial Christmas trees.  Being a live-tree-loving-girl, if I’m going to switch to the reliability of an artificial tree, it has to look really

I get asked a lot of questions about decorating with live evergreens, how I keep them fresh, etc., so I thought I would share all of the details in a post. In previous years, I have just used the put-it-in-place-and-don’t-touch-it-method.  With most greenery, that works pretty well.  Really, just put it where you want and leave it alone.  It will dry out and be a crispy mess when you take it down after Christmas, but it will look nice (in most cases) through the holidays. Okay, I guess I did do a little more than that… Make sure to buy greenery that feels hydrated.  (Or clip from bushes/trees that are healthy and well-watered.)  This will extend their life. Store them in a cool place until you’re ready to use them.  I’ve lived in a cool climate, so I would just leave them out on my deck. Give the clippings some