Christmas Past

Welcome to the second month of Town and Country Living’s Cozy Living Series! I am excited to have the opportunity to join these talented bloggers and share our personal versions of how we do cozy throughout the year.

And what is a cozier time than this? This is my favorite time of year! It has changed a lot around our house with three little ones and become much more colorful, fun, and I’ll admit it: even a bit cheesy. Not even kidding…we have a huge inflatable elf in our yard as I type. The kids love it.

I am still working on getting our house decked out for this Christmas season with Hazel and Owen (who really want to have their say in where EVERYTHING goes), so today, I wanted to bring you back to a Christmas from the past. The last one before we had any children, and I actually had free reign with decorating. The year was 2010, and my husband and I had just purchased our first home.

I had one Christmas wish that year and it was to find out I was pregnant. I ended up taking a test on the 23rd, and realized my wish came true. I will never forget that. The following summer our sweet daughter Hazel was born.

That year, I knew exactly how I wanted to decorate our home for the holidays. I have always had a love for vintage and rustic décor and at the time really embraced neutral colors and farmhouse style. Looking back on these photos reminds me of how much I loved this style and how cozy it truly made our new home.

We headed out one foggy afternoon to get our Christmas tree and found it at a local farm market only a few miles away.

I also remember how eager I was to have a “flocked” Christmas tree. I ordered an online flocking kit and my husband who obliges my whims, flocked that whole tree for me. It didn’t look as snowy as I had hoped, but it did lighten the color of the green and give it more of a blue spruce hue which I really loved.

A few years later we bought a flocked artificial tree, but I do miss having a real one so much that we might get one this year!

We didn’t have a fireplace in that home, so we went to a well known salvage store in our area and found an old mantel. It was painted brown and very chippy and was perfect to me. If you have followed me for a long time, you know how much I loved that mantel, but you may have never seen it before I painted it white. The brown fit really well that Christmas, but when we had children, I was concerned about lead paint, so my husband sanded it down and painted it later on.

I was also excited to put our flat screen TV inside of the mantel which also only lasted pre-children. It was perfect with putting the yule log on television to give the cozy ambiance of a crackling fire even if we didn’t have a real one 🙂

Our house is much more colorful right now, and filled with lots of traditional red and green, and decorations made by Hazel and Owen, but I love it.

I also love looking back on these simpler Christmases. When it was just Josh and me and our dog Renoir and our little house where I had free reign to decorate as I pleased and loved welcoming guests in to see how I had done it all up.

It was a sweet time in life that I will always treasure. That is one reason why I enjoy blogging so much…to be able to look back on these memories written down, photographed, frozen in time. It has the amazing ability to take me right back there.

If you want to see more from our home that Christmas you can check out the full post on my former typepad blog.

Be sure to visit all of the inspiring bloggers joining in the Cozy Living Series!

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Vintage Christmas Decorations