Deck The Halls — Go French Yourself

I don’t know about you, but I’m a huge fan of decorating for the holidays. And I decorate right after Thanksgiving so I can enjoy it all month long. My daughter and Lin's mom spend Christmas with us and I love making everything fun and festive. I also host an annual ladies's brunch and really love creating my theme for that around my holiday decor. I switch it up every year. So this year we had planned to be in Houston so I ended up getting rid of ALL of my decorations and just could not handle having to buy all new things again since we are leaving the country next year. I found myself in a real dilemma. I thought okay...we just won't decorate. I can create one of those modern trees out of our entire book collection. Or hmmmm, I will just get a tree like always and craft some ornaments out of twigs or something..yeah, right?! Really Samantha....

After many hours on Pinterest, I decided I would snag my first ever artificial tinsel modern tree at Hayneedle. ( The main reason being it wouldn't require ornaments) They have the greatest Christmas stuff for the modern family. And after the holiday, I can resell it. So I fell in love with a black tree and a burgundy tree and Lin and a few close friends agreed the burgundy would be easier to resell. And it would compliment the condo's decor. Lin was thrilled it came with the lights and stand so we wouldn't have to purchase those things. I would need to purchase a tree skirt but I knew I wanted one in grey felt and could easily do that with fabric. And I love burgundy and grey together. It's such a pleasant unexpected combo. And guess what the theme is for my annal Ladies Brunch this year??! Yep....burgundy and grey.

The tree came and it wasn't love at first sight for me. I have always had a real tree tied to a wonderful day of picking it from a local farm while drinking hot cider and then a night of trimming with egg nog and bubbly and Christmas music...

It was also tinier then I imagined so I needed to make a few tweaks to rearranging some things around. Scale is critical you guys. So it took a few days but it grew on me and I like it! It's different and my friends keep reminding me that I will not have all those pine needles to pick up and if I leave town, I will not have to recruit someone to water the thing! So everything really does have a silver lining. What do you guys think?!!

We also set this up during Bedlam and OU did win that game BTW. Our house is divided so Lin was absolutely pouting in front of that crimson tree.

I am a sucker for a theme and I wanted to do something elegant with this year's wrapping. I saw this amazing photo on Pinterest and it was love at first sight. So I recreated it. You will want to find black wrapping paper but make sure it's matte. I found mine at Michael's and Hobby Lobby (I had to go to both to get the quantity that I needed) Grab lots of black ribbon but you will want this to have some gloss to it and be the exact opposite of matte for the black on black effect. Then grab some fresh garland from your local garden center. You can just grab a bundle and will need to cut the branches to adorn your packages. I also grabbed some stencils and gold markers and will actually write on the package this year vs getting to and from tags. I need to have a few practice runs with the stencil this weekend so don't laugh too much!

And lastly I wanted to make a few simple wreaths for my dining room windows. Grab the same bundles of garland you did for the packages. One bundle will make two wreaths. You will also need floral wire that you can find by the seeds usually and make sure you have wire cutters. No special skills are required so anyone can do this. I am so not crafty you guys. You cannot go wrong with fresh greenery. It looks great and smells amazing. So, all you do is coil the garland onto the frame, one layer on top of another, wiring it together as you go. Once you've finished, hold it up to check if there are pieces hanging out and just wire them back in. I sorta like mine having no rhyme or reason.

Simple, right? You do not have to be a professional florist to make a fresh wreath.