Men can decorate for Christmas, too

Since I was still on crutches the day after Thanksgiving, Hubby offered to help decorate - if I could tell him where everything went.  That was hard for me - I create as I go.  But I had three able bodied and willing male people here.  So we got 'er done.

In years past, I have put so much Christmas decor out that it was exhausting!  My family never seemed to mind, but then, they weren't the ones fussy over something as ridiculous as how something was arranged in a bowl.  It was high time we made this simpler - if only for a year.  It will be much easier taking it all down.

 And while we were at it, I realized that it meant so much more for all of us to participate in making our home merry.  Hubby bought some new red tapers when he picked up groceries, and  stuck some berry sprays up between items on a shelf.  I put some extra ornaments in a jar, and he stuck that up there, too.

Simple.

 We hauled out about half of the holiday pillows we have - why do we need so many?  Note to self: get rid of some.  But that goes for a lot of the holiday decor we own...there's almost just too much of it.  It creates stress instead of beauty, you know?

We picked out all of the silver, gold, and red ornaments that we wanted on the tree and we didn't overdo it.  I might have bought a couple of new ones from Pottery Barn.  

My bad.

 Simple white lights.  Wish we could have had a shorter tree - that sucker is 8 1/2 feet tall.  But that's the one thing I get outvoted on so I guess it's good we have a million ornaments!

 

 But most of these we've had a loooong time.

 I love this red PB snowflake that hangs from the lamp:

 And the "magical tree" from last year - it lives in the china cabinet for safety!

 In my dough bowl, I pulled out all of the orange Fall stuff and added more pinecones and fake greenery with only one candle. 

 And Bubbie helped us arrange this tree collection over the mantle.

 

 Sure, I'd have liked to change it up a bit - I ended up doing some of the same things as last year.  But it was worth it to our sanity to keep it simple.  Trust me, though, I am pinning ideas for next year and I FULLY expect to be able to do it with help from the boys again!