Sharing Our Christmas Decorations and a Secret

We have finished decorating for Christmas. (We always wait until the weekend after Thanksgiving.)

The stockings are hung by the chimney with care…you know the rest.

I love this wreath I bought from a friend at our Mom N Me craft fair.

My sister’s childhood BFF, Natalie, was helping to clean out a relative’s house, and when they found this train she thought of Nicholas. It’s the first thing he runs to in the morning and he is still playing with it when we have to drag him off to bed. It’s also the perfect size for under the Christmas tree.

Speaking of the Christmas tree, have you seen my tutorials for snowman keepsake and applesauce ornaments yet?

I’m soooooo happy we were able to finish our fireplace mantle before the holidays. 

This is the first year we’ve been able to hang our stockings by a fireplace. 

Psst…Want to hear a secret about our monogrammed stockings? I only bought one of them (Penelope’s) from Pottery Barn Kids.

The rest I bought from one of my favorite websites, Uglysofa.com, that sells what they call “Brand X” (rhymes with “Snottery Yarn,” mentioned above) overstocks and returns at amazing prices. 

They always have a ton of “Brand X” stockings for less than ten bucks. A lot of them are monogrammed, but they only have common names. The monogramming is included in the price. They didn’t have Penelope last year, so I ordered her one to match from PBK. Truth be told, I was a little disappointed that the monogram on her expensive one wasn’t as thick as the others. I was expecting her monogram to be the same as Nicholas’. They also have what they call “recession stockings,” like our Santa on the left, that have the white cuff cut off because a name was misspelled or something. They don’t match exactly with the others, but you can get them personalized for free if you have a less common name.

This is not a sponsored post, I just really like that website, especially around the holidays, and I wanted to share it with you. Although, I have to warn you that my friend Lauren ordered stockings from Ugly Sofa last year and the monograms were crooked. Look at the photo carefully before you order. The photo is the exact stocking you are ordering.  

Are your holiday decorations up? Did you put them up before or after Thanksgiving? (If you say before, I’m not sure we can still be friends, but I’ll give you a free pass just this once since Thanksgiving came so late this year.)