Happy Black Friday though around here it’s also Red Friday (Go Chiefs!). 
Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We went to my brother’s house and had a nice time with lots of good food. Brought home the leftovers of our contributions of cranberry sauce, pumpkin, and chocolate pie. Had to run to the store this morning though to pick up some deli turkey for sandwiches though.
Didn’t think to take a single picture yesterday! Oops. And filling today’s post with pictures of previous Christmas decorations…
Moving On…
Each year I try to participate in the Blogmas hosted by Tamy over at Chasing My Life. I love that she’s extended it this year to start today!
So, let’s talk about Christmas decorating. 
I do enjoy Christmas (Fourth of July is my favorite but I concede Christmas has better decorations) and decorating. My husband’s rule is not until after Thanksgiving.
Many years we traveled for Thanksgiving. So didn’t get much done in the way of decorating until the Sunday night after the holiday. Sometimes, not until the following weekend.
Today’s Decorating Plans
Today, I need to take down all the Thanksgiving/fall decorations and clean. I’ve looked up and clutter creeped into a lot of my prime Christmas decorating spots. SIGH. So, I’m on a bit of a declutter before decorating mission today. Also, I’m trying to finish up a Thanksgiving candle. It’s too low to really put back into the cabinet but I can’t bring myself to throw those candles away until they are completely done.
I’ve already put the Christmas bedding on the bed in the our bedroom though I may switch it to the more festive plaid side. And I’ll put the holiday shower curtain up after I clean the main bathroom as well as put out the Christmas towels.
The Rest of the Weekend
The truth is I need help for some of our Christmas decorations and so it depends on my husband and sons’ schedules. I’m hoping they’ll help me at least with the moving of the furniture and putting up of some lighted greenery tomorrow. Although if it doesn’t happen, I’ll be okay with it. Sometimes it’s nice to let the house breathe a minute between holidays. However, sometime by the first weekend in December (that’s next weekend), I’ll have the house decorated for the holidays.
Thinking of Scaling Back or Changing the Christmas Decorating Theme 
My style (if you can call it that) has always been a bit of the traditional “throw all the ornaments every collected over the years on the tree.” This year, however, I’m feeling the need to scale it back a bit. The all the ornaments on the tree was my mother’s style and of course, it helped when the kids were little and loved decorating the tree.
New year, older children, and maybe it’s time for actually choosing a style more in-line with my personality. I love the outdoors and all the nature greenery I see brought in for the Scandinavian type of Christmas decorating. 
So, this year I’m thinking of not putting all the heavy and breakable and of course, meaningful ornaments on the tree. Instead, just keeping it simple with candles (battery operated that I saw at Menards) on the branches, maybe some birds and I don’t know what else. And adding lots of candles and greenery throughout the house.
*Stay tuned on whether the kids young adults revolt if I try this idea. And I did look into a real tree but vetoed the idea because of the cat and fire hazard thoughts.
What are your holiday decorating plans? Do you stick with the same each year or change to different themes?
We tend to stick with similar decorations each year. Although this year, things will be moved around a bit due to now having a piano in the house and having to move furniture to new places when we got the piano. That means the tree will be in a new place as well. We usually start decorating the day after Thanksgiving and today is no exception as we are going to put the tree up tonight after Bill gets home from work.
I thought I would also mention that something that would make you happy…. Jacob has asked for a Travis Kelce shirt for Christmas this year! He has decided the Chiefs are his new favorite team! 🙂
I always have decorated the same way and loved our big “put together” tree that held everything. Then, we got new furniture and less room for a Christmas tree changing to a newer, smaller pre-lit one that didn’t hold as many ornaments. Still haven’t done much decorating here yet. Yay! for Jacob, great choice on his favorite team 🙂
Hello! Glad you had a nice Thanksgiving, my friend. Decorating for Christmas is different when the kids are grown, indeed! Your style looks wonderful! Madison decorates with the Scandinavian theme, as Nicolas is Danish, and she likes to bring his Christmas traditions here for him. It is beautiful! Have a nice weekend! Enjoy, and I am looking forward to seeing your decorations!
Thank you! I’m trying to adjust to these kids being older though honestly, neither was ever really “into” Christmas all that much. Right now my inner child is arguing with my outer adult because one wants to BUY EVERYTHING for this new theme while the other *boring, practical* one is saying no, let’s see what we have here that will work first. Ha. Hope you are having a wonderful weekend so far.
You said: “throw all the ornaments every collected over the years on the tree.” That is my usual style. I think one year since both boys have moved out, I stopped putting all ‘their’ ornaments on the tree and just went with the pretty bulbs I’d accumulated over the years. I liked it, but missed all those sentimental ornaments and went back to that style. Decorations around the house are the same, leaning more traditional but still mostly all sentimental pieces gathered over the years.
I don’t know how people can go out and buy whole new themes each year?! I see them all over YouTube and Instagram, and I’m like “How???” Where do they store it all? Do they get rid of previous years? How can they afford it? Also, it seems there is nothing sentimental about any of it. I guess when they’re all about the show there is no room for sentiment.
I usually put up our tree and decorate the house the day after Thanksgiving. I just wasn’t feeling it this year. I did get some things out finally yesterday, but the tree is still bare. You mentioned thinking of scaling back, and I’ve definitely done that the past few years. I used to go ALL OUT, whole house, every inch of space had something. Now I only put out a handful of favorite things, and I quite like it.
Yeah, I’m not sure how I’ll like this but I want to give it a try. I don’t know maybe they sell the previous year to afford the new theme? Or have more than one tree? My husband just commented on how it was interesting that I’ve bought more than he remembers me ever buying (it’s not that much really) ever since I said I was going to “scale back” the decorating this year.
LOVE this post. You and I are so similar in how we go about things. First the de-clutter from the previous season, rearrange the furniture and clean, then the decorating and back to cleaning 😀
I like your themed idea A LOT! Hubby likes LOTS of color so don’t think he’d do well with the Scandanavian love of white.
Ironically as we put the ornaments on this year they are still a bit “all over the place”, but I did set aside the heavier more breakable less sentimental ones that I’m just not in love with for hubby to either use on the outside tree he does or the garage sale in the spring – his choice.
I have that same angel you have outdoors in a smaller version – love it! Thank you for joining in again this year.
I’m really struggling to find some time to do the declutter I need for things. Hopefully, I’ll have the house decorated by the weekend (my goal). I’m going to need to offset the white with lots of green, I think. I like a decent amount of color myself. My late mother-in-law gave me the angel planter, it’s one of my favorite outdoor things. Thanks for doing Blogmas again this year, so fun!
I enjoyed reading this post, Jean, and love Tamy’s Blogmas series. I wish I could have gotten myself together enough to participate. I so enjoyed it when I did it before. When the kids were little we always decorated for Christmas Thanksgiving night. Then, Amanda got married and John and I started going to Kansas City for Christmas, we’d decorate the week before Thanksgiving so the house would already be decorated and all Christmassy when we got home. Last year I really don’t remember what I did and, this year, with the kittens and all, thus far I’ve only put up a few lights. I’m debating taking a chance on putting up a small tree. I’d hate for the kittens to destroy it but we’ll see. Anyway, I did enjoy this post and you’ve spurred me on to further think about things. Thanks!
Thank you. I have no idea why but our older cat never got into the tree and simply slept underneath it. Think she taught the cat we have now who also doesn’t get into the tree. Of course, I don’t know what she’d do with a real tree.
Hmmm…makes me wonder if I should give it a try then. I just assumed that they would wreak havoc. Maybe they wont. I’ll let you know what happens after I decide.