Ho ho ho! Thanks for stopping by for my 2018 Cloverhill Farmhouse Christmas Home Tour. I wasn’t quite sure how much decor I’d get out this Christmas with an 8 week old baby and an active two-and-a-half year old toddler, but I think we’ve managed to still get things looking quite festive.
I look forward to Christmas all year long and no matter how busy things have been, it feels so good to decorate the house and celebrate the season.
The best years are always the ones where we get a good amount of snow before Christmas. Several mornings we’ve woken up to flurries outside and it feels like we’re inside a snow globe.
I kept the decorations simple on the front porch this year, with two planters and a wreath we can keep up throughout the winter. On nights when we know we have company coming, we plug in the string lights along the porch too.
In previous years, I’ve used our two large red DIY holiday planters, but this Christmas I decided to switch things up. I repurposed our summer planters for the holidays, with birch logs, various greens, magnolia leaves, some glittery picks and big red bows. The soil was frozen solid and I tried to loosen it up with hot water unsuccessfully. Then my dad had the genius idea to drill large holes into the dirt to secure the logs. I wedged a piece of soaked floral oasis into the center, and with my mom’s help we tackled adding all the greens.
We trimmed some boughs in half to get even more greens out of the two bunches I had picked up. The glittery gold picks and ribbon I already had on hand, making these an inexpensive decoration, using so much of what we already had on hand.
I found a simple evergreen wreath on sale last week and added a few glittery berries and a big bow. It was so easy to attach it to the updated screen door I painted this summer. Although we can’t have a real tree inside for allergies, I sure do love the smell of this wreath every time I step out onto the porch.
Right inside the front door, is our newly renovated foyer. I’ve put all my focus for Christmas decorating on the places of the house where we have guests and visitors pop by. It was fun to finally be able to decorate this area of the house this year too!
I was trying to figure out a place to hang our stockings where little hands wouldn’t be tugging them all the time, and then I realized the staircase was perfect – we can still see them but they’re safe behind the baby gate.
I found these chunky red knit stockings at Target a couple of years ago and after the holidays they were on clearance, so I couldn’t resist picking up an extra one in the hopes that we’d have another child someday. Now that Rosie is here, I’m so happy to have a matching stocking for her. It was originally an “I” but I added more embroidery to make it a “R”. The wooden cranberry garland is tied onto the railing with clear fishing line and I added some striped bows to hang up the stockings too.
On our cabinet, I put this adorable little cyprus tree from my friend’s florist shop, along with ceramic tealight houses I found in the Target dollar area a couple years ago. Maybe someday I’ll be able to setup my handmade Christmas village here too.
I love how our vintage front hall light looks with the new LED Edison bulbs and some touch up paint, so it seemed fitting to give it a holiday update too – with a little ball of mistletoe and some striped bow to match the ones on the banister. It always makes me think of the giant kissing balls they have for Christmas at Black Creek Pioneer Village.
In the living room, I have our big tree nestled between the two new armchairs. We put the tree up after our local Santa Claus parade in November and it sat their for two weeks without decorations as things were so busy handling the two kiddos. Lucy finally got fed up with us and added shredded tissues on it as “snow”, ha! Eventually we got the decorations pulled out of storage but couldn’t find the star, thinking maybe we could get away without one this year. Lucy started telling everyone that we had a Christmas tree “but no star on the top”, so Garrett hunted it down in the basement this weekend. I’m glad “Little Miss Christmas” kept on top of us because now it feels like a proper Christmas tree!
Our tree is mostly decorated with non-breakable ornaments, with a few more precious fragile ones near the top. I’ve used a mixture of the blue, gold and silver balls I decorated the tree with last year, along with sentimental or homemade decorations too, like my felt gingerbread men, felt mittens,, kissing santa, and Lucy’s first Christmas ornament. The tree skirt is one of my thick vintage wool blankets in Dress Gordon plaid (my maiden name is Gordon).
I added another tartan wool blanket on the couch (perfect for cuddling up for Christmas movie nights), along with my usual yellow pillows and a few fun festive pillows I used a couple years ago.
I’ve started to use more blues and greens in my decor in the house, and I like that our tree and Christmas decor reflects that, with a few pops of traditional red in there too.
Above the TV, we have is this adorable banner that my friend’s sister made us. I shared our Halloween one earlier this fall and I think it’s so sweet that she makes these. Lucy absolutely loves the banner and happily points it out to everyone who visits.
I don’t have much decor in the dining room this year, but I did hang up this lovely wreath that my friend made from her florist shop. The magnolia leaves are such a great touch and I love the mixture of fresh greens. I shared a tutorial and video on my own Brass Ring Wreath last December, if you’d like to make your own.
Our little kitchen shelves got a festive touch too, with my favourite red truck cookie jar, some vintage inspired tins and a beautiful pottery oil lamp made by my aunt.
This is a little sneak peak of a cabinet I painted this fall for our kitchen (I’ll share more about it soon) and even though it’s not quite done yet, I couldn’t resist adding a few little wreaths to it as well.
With the days getting shorter, it’s dark so much sooner right now, but the magical glow of the Christmas tree is always a welcome sight in the evenings.
I’m often walking around the house with the baby at night right now and we spend lots of time looking at the tree. I like to show the girls all the special ornaments, like this “Just Married” one from my parents the year of our wedding.
The glass Gender Reveal Ornament I painted the year we were expecting Lucy. We had our parents each open it up to find out what we were having.
The hand stitched ornament I made for Lucy’s first christmas – and I’m already working on one for Rosemary!
Sharing the holiday season with our girls has given Garrett and I so much joy this year. It brings back my own childhood memories of playing under the twinkling lights of the tree before bedtime, reading stories of Christmas cheer and talking about how we can give to others. Seeing this all through their eyes may just be the best gift of all.
I hope you have a very special holiday season with your loved ones too this year. Merry Christmas!
