A Cozy Christmas {Decor Ideas}

| Allison

Hello friends!

Get ready for a cozy and aesthetic post! I went all out for Sully’s and my first “married” Christmas: lots of handmade decorations to make our house feel extra pretty and special. I filled it with fresh greenery, twinkly lights, dried orange slices, and a Christmas tree that might be my favorite yet.

Come in and take a tour, will you?

We’ll start with the front door. I bought a cheap wire wreath form from Walmart and finished it with cedar, pine, and holly greenery. It makes me happy!

DSC_4804

In the kitchen I made a wintry terrarium thingy with powdered sugar “snow,” pinecones, holly, and fairy lights. I surrounded the jar with more greenery.

DSC_4824

One of my favorite ways to decorate seasonally is to fill vases with whatever foliage or flowers you can find outside.

DSC_4831

I replaced a few framed pictures with Christmas versions. You can find this printable at my Etsy shop here.

DSC_4837

I had leftover pumpkins from fall displays and didn’t want to throw them all away, so I kept a few in wintry colors and tucked some greenery in the corners.

DSC_4839

Some of my favorite decorations are these darling houses I made with cardboard and hot glue. I had a gold wax stick left in the hot glue gun for this one. Kinda messy but still cute, especially with fairy lights turned on inside.

DSC_4841DSC_4842

Here’s a bigger one with clear hot glue on the bookshelf. They bring me so much joy and look extremely cozy when it gets dark.

DSC_4846

I made a few garland thingies with greenery, pinecones, and dried oranges. The orange peel star garland is still up from my fall décor but I thought it fit well.

DSC_4850DSC_4852

Another garland for the doorway between the dining and living room. This one was hard to hang up, sheesh. I attached a bunch more orange slices on the side facing the living room. (Sorry for the weird lighting, btw. It’s been cloudy all week so I had to use my softbox lights.)

DSC_4854DSC_4865

Added some pine greenery to the lights in front of the TV…

DSC_4858

And set up a beautiful wooden nativity set that we got as a wedding gift!

DSC_4862

Does anyone remember Sully’s tree he got last year from this post? He was quite excited to bring it out again this year.

DSC_4870

I made a few paper bag snowflakes from @thekwendyhome’s tutorial. All you need are hot glue and paper lunch bags1 And I had fun draping greenery or pinecones over a bunch of our windows.

DSC_4873

Before we move on to my crowning achievement, a brief note about dried orange slices. I also found a tutorial from @thekwendyhome on Instagram, but basically you bake thin slices of citrus at 250°F for a couple of hours, checking them often toward the end to make sure they don’t burn. I made some of the slices into ornaments using craft wire.

DSC_4768

And here’s the whimsical cedar tree I hung them on! I absolutely love this picture. ❤ It’s so cozy and Christmasy, isn’t it?

DSC_4808

I love the orange slice ornaments and the starfish tree topper. XD The latter is something of a tradition in Sully’s family so I thought I’d carry it on. 🙂

DSC_4809

The dried oranges glow like stained glass in front of the Christmas lights.

DSC_4811

I saved our honeymoon ornament for Sully to hang when he got home from work. 🙂

DSC_4814

Sully’s not much into Christmas trees so I actually chopped this one down from my family’s farm, stuffed it in my car, trimmed it, set it up, and lighted it myself. It was quite the undertaking! But we did hang a few of the ornaments together – and Sully set the tree up after it fell over once, oh dear. I think it’s stable now though and it looks lovely.

DSC_4765

Well that was a fun post to make. I hope this added a bit of Christmas wonder and coziness to your day. I love how people fill their homes with lights when the year is at it’s darkest – and when we’re celebrate the coming of the greatest Light into a dark world. What a beautiful thing to meditate on this month.

How do you decorate/prepare for Christmas? What was your favorite decoration in my house?

Thanks so much for reading, my friends, and have a lovely day!

***Allison***

P. S. Photos taken with my Nikon D7200 and a 35mm lens. Edited with Lightroom.

Advertisement

33 thoughts on “A Cozy Christmas {Decor Ideas}”

  2. So lovely! Did you use some kind of a form for the garlands, or how did you get them to stay together and keep the shape you wanted?

    Like

    Reply

    1. Ah thanks! I didn’t use any form – just lots of craft wire! I overlapped bunches of greenery, wrapping each one with craft wire as I went along. But it was tricky to keep them the right shape.

      Like

      Reply

  7. Hi Allison;
    Your house looks lovely with all the trees and decorations. The light shining through the orange slices are beautiful.
    Happy,Blessed Merry Christmas
    Marilyn,Joan and Marion

    Like

    Reply

  8. I love that you did a blend of your own flare for decor, but also included your husband’s family’s traditions. A starfish topping the tree is so unique, and the orange slices are very pretty! 🙂

    Like

    Reply

  11. I just started celebrating Christmas five years ago (I’m Jewish, and my husband is Christian). This year, I had the pleasure of going Christmas tree shopping with my husband’s parents. It was so much fun! I really love the star made out of the paper lunch bag. It was gorgeous! So we’re the tiny houses. They’re really adorable 🥰 Thank you for sharing your DIYs with us! I really enjoyed seeing all of them 😃

    Like

    Reply
  13. Pingback: A Winter Walk {Pinecones, Sunsets, & String Lights} – Allison Marie

Your comments make my day! Please keep them clean and respectful so everyone can enjoy this blog. :) Thank you!

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s