How To Have A Pinterest Inspired Christmas!

Well, it’s countdown time…as my boys said tonight when they went to bed…only “two more sleeps” til it’s Christmas! That made me smile. A reminder of days gone by when they were little and would say that…but instead of “til it’s Christmas”….it would, of course, be til “Santa comes!” They’re still excited for ‘Santa’ to come…just in a different way now that they’re 16 and 12. :-)

As everyone went to bed tonight…one by one…and I was left with the quiet to contemplate all the things I still need to do before the big day…I looked around the house and had to smile at all the little festive touches that I have scattered around the house this year thanks to the fine community over at Pinterest.com. My daughter, who is home from college for a few days, even commented on the “festive” feel of the house this year.

She loved the Christmasy smell of the stove top potpourri simmering on the stove that I posted about here.

She was also admiring the 3-D snowflakes hanging up around the house that I posted about here.
(I suspect she was more shocked than admiring…but hid it well.) :-)
I’ve since made about 6 or 7 more and tonight…I showed my daughter…how to make them and we made a few more. The house is really looking festive now in preparation for our Christmas Eve party.

While we made the snowflakes…we bonded over a cup of my homemade hot chocolate that I posted about here. Britta gave it her seal of approval. :-)

She also gave her seal of approval to our new Christmas cards garland! I didn’t post about this but I DID first see something like it on Pinterest.

This was SO simple!! I already I had all kinds of clothespins and a roll of jute twine. All I did was sweet talk the hubster into tapping in two small nails up near the corners of our big bay window. Instant Christmas card display! Normally I would just tape them along the top of the window, but inevitably several of them would fall off because the tape wouldn’t stick. The clothespins hold those suckers on real nice and tight. :-)

I’m not quite done with my wrapping yet…but I did do most of it last Saturday and used the snowflakes I made and posted about here.
I never did get around to doing the whole snowflake garland…..but I used up all the snowflakes on my “brown paper packages” that I posted about here.

This is actually the picture that inspired my wrapping this year…from HowAboutOrange.com. Hers are infinitely more professional-looking than mine….but I really like the way they turned out overall.

They are a nice change. I have to say my boys seemed a bit dismayed when they saw them…they are used to much more color under our tree…..but I guess they started to grow on them because since then they have both commented about how nice they look. :-)

So, those are just a few, simple holiday additions to our home this year…that have made our Christmas just a little more festive overall. Thanks Pinterest and all you talented Pinners out there!