Our Home Dressed up for the Holidays

My old lantern hanging from a birch "tree" that we brought in.

Last week I said I would give you a tour of our home decorated. Well I took longer than I said I would be here I am with photos. My new camera (my old one had stopped working but I was able to replace it with the warranty- yea!) arrived last week so it was really nice to be able to take lots of pictures again.

   Last week I wrote about how we like to harvest decorations from our own land, so when you look at the pictures of our decorating you may notice that they are not very flashy but generally they tend towards bringing nature in to decorate with. I am not real fond of lots of glitter and shine so natural decorating is perfect for me. This year I have really been enjoying Scandinavian styles so we tried to find some Scandinavian ideas to incorporate into our decorating. Though I don't think our look is authentically Scandinavian, much of it is Scandinavian inspired. The simple color scheme with lots of bright red was on of the things that we particularly followed.

  Here are some pictures......

The living room:

Our stockings - we figured out this new way of hanging them this year.

I love decorating this shelf. Someday I am looking forward to a mantelpiece.

 These pillows I quickly "recovered" by slipping them in some old cloth bags (clover seeds were bought in them long ago by my Grandpa) and then I just put a band of red felt over top (it isn't permanent) and then hot glued some buttons on. I like how festive they are.

The kids love having candlelight (the younger two especially). It sometimes can make work a little difficult on these dark evenings as they like all the other lights off - but it is fun.

Dining room:

 The Kitchen:

Mara making yummy cinnamon rolls in our decorated kitchen.

 Mara cut hearts and stars out of birch bark for us to hang over our kitchen window.

Entry Way:

 The kids wanted to make a "scene" to go on the table by the door. It is still a work in progress but they have made a very little cabin to go into it. Jonathan had started it earlier just for fun and he and Mara worked at finishing it up and adding stuff inside. You might notice Jonathan's eye peering through the window on the other side.

 The kids and I made a mitten branch to use for hanging mittens up to dry. We attached clothespins to an old branch that I brought in.

 The Upstairs Bathroom:

Megan fixed up some decorations for in here.

We do obviously have other parts to our house but I didn't really do anything much in the way of decorating this year. Sometimes I do but this year it didn't happen and that is quite all right.

The day after Thanksgiving we did all have a family activity of decorating outside with lights.
Here is outside:

The chickens are over there in the red light district. :-)

 Do you enjoy decorating for the different seasons? I would love to hear what you like to do best!

I am linking up to:
The Homestead Barn Hop
A Proverbs 31 Life
The Chicken Chick Blog Hop