Decorating with the Monograms

Much as I would love to go buy “the tree” and start putting up the myriad of plaid bows, gossamer ribbon, red holly berries and garland the weekend of Thanksgiving, it just never happens. Try as I might to coerce, bribe, and light a fire under Mr. Monogram’s rear end to get moving on the indoor and outdoor holiday decorating, inevitably, I am left frustrated as he lays on the sofa in a pair of elastic lounge pants, telling me he’s still too full and his body “requires” additional recovery time from Thanksgiving. Recovery from what exactly? I mean, I feel fairly certain that nobody forced you to eat that 3rd piece of pecan pie and entire can of whipped cream? Let’s get decorating already! One of these days I will learn my lesson and just stop asking as the answer is always the same, “Next weekend,” from Mr. Monogram. Although I will give him credit for at least pulling down all the boxes of ornaments and decorations last weekend even though he refused to crack even a single plastic lid. To him, it's like opening Pandora's box. If I open one, I've got to open them all. So maybe that’s a sign of progress? The beginning of a pre-Christmas miracle perhaps? Well I can hope, anyway. Although clearly I am not setting my expectations too high if I’m hoping for my Christmas miracle to be in the form of holiday decorating excitement on behalf of Mr. M (not to mention I will be waiting a very long time).

So that brings us to this weekend, the first weekend in December. The weekend that Mr. Monogram has designated as the Monogram Household Holiday Decorating Weekend when our garage and attic basically spew the joys and bright lights of Christmas onto our neighbors. It’s like the Superbowl of Christmas decorating. He goes loooooooooooooooooooooooong and TOUCHDOWN with the angel on top of the tree! But it isn’t all fun and games. Oh No. After all, what would the holidays be without a little bit of bickering thrown in the mix just for some added *fun*?

So Saturday morning we went to pick out our Christmas tree.

Me: Look how beautiful this tree is. It’s PERFECT. It’s THE tree!

Him: It’s 10’ tall (annoyed)

Me: I know! It’s gorgeous!

Him: Our ceiling is only 9’ tall. And don’t ask me if we can raise the ceiling.

And then dragging out the holiday lights….

Me: Don’t forget to plug them in to make sure they all work!

Him: Duhhh

Me: Don’t forget to hide the cords!

Him: Why? That’s so stupid? No one can see them at night anyway.

Me: Well I can see them and I know they’re there and I think that’s a bit tacky so please hide the cords

Do you think he hid the cords? Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

After spending the day outside, we finally, FINALLY, got to decorate the tree last night

Me: be careful with the Neiman’s balls

Him: You don’t have to tell me that every year, you know.

CRASH. Break. SPLATER.

Me: Apparently I do.

But let’s get back to the decorating. One thing I love to do is place Christmas balls in my crystal bowls that are usually just sitting unoccupied and lonely in my china cabinet, and even on top of candlesticks. You can see here how I’ve dusted off a few candlesticks and topped them off with shiny ornaments just nonchalantly sitting on a buffet in my family room that is covered in old family photo’s. Throw out your burned out cable votives and put in it’s place instead, an ornament. Votive holders are the perfect size to sporadically place on your bookshelves and built-ins to add a little punch of holiday color that you normally wouldn’t do, and also help carry your holiday color scheme through your entire room and home. Spice things up and even throw a few in a glass vase in the bathroom! Who says the loo doesn’t need some holiday cheer as well?

And if you’re going to bring some cheer into the “library” shall we say, then don’t forget other commonly used spaces such as entry foyers and kitchens. In my kitchen pass-through window I've filled 4 quare glass vases (small) with colorful ornaments, and each side of the window also sites a nutcracker. And I’m sure you remember the great green pea disaster as we so affectionately refer to it, but at Christmastime, the kitchen table bowl (one of these days I swear I’m going to find something decorative to replace with that bowl but it’s just so damn versatile!) is filled to the brim with ornaments. I know what you’re thinking. If they spilled the peas, they will certainly make batting practice out of the ornaments, right? Don’t worry, monogram momma is always one step ahead of those mischievous mini monograms, and instead of glass balls, these are plastic. Yep! I’ll show them yet! HA!

Of course we all like to put a big green holiday wreath on our front doors, and in fact, it’s the first thing to make it’s public appearance once thanksgiving is over, probably because it’s the easiest decoration to put up. But usually I tend to stray away from the holiday wreath on the door and I’m particularly excited about what I came up with this year. Cute? Well I’m not going to go into full-on wreath detail here because I’m planning on addressing it in length later in the week, but you better believe this one had me humming “Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow” all day long as I was working on it!

Now, once you enter my front door, you are naturally, inside my open entry foyer with the front stairway greeting you. Naturally that has to be decorated as I do every year, although this year I added some ribbon to it. Typically I don't do a lot of ribbon, but I decided to give it a go this year and aside from not likeing the actual ribbon I chose, I will say I do like the look of it. I made some bows and added some fruit and lights and the stairway is nearly complete. Here's a little preview of the banister here, and again, this is something I'll go into further detail later in the week.

The mantle as well, is something I'll tackle in detail later this week, but so far it's covered in garalnd and berries, lights and hurricanes filled with balls. I'm not entirely "sold" on the look and it really isn't complete so I'm off today to continue working on it. Mini #1 has a playdate at a friends house so with only one mini to get in and out of the car my job today will be MUCH easier and I've got all sorts of lofty asipirations as to what I'm going to be able to accomplish today.

One last thing. Since there is so much I want to chat about during the Christmas season, it's pretty likely that on some days I will do more than one post. Don't forget I'll be throwing in some great shopping and gift finds and as usual, if you've got any specific requests, let me know!