Christmas Home Tour 2018

‘Seasoned’ Greetings!! You are invited to our virtual Christmas Home Tour! The last time we did a Holiday open house was Dec 2014 (I was pregnant then and it was our last Christmas in our first home). Fast forward 4 years and we are spending our first Christmas in our new home, our long-awaited dream home where we plan to spend the rest of our Christmases (God willing).

P.S. I have a Christmas card waiting for you at the end of this post.

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Our move and the process of house hunting and then building was a whirlwind; stressful, exciting, draining, hopeful, time intensive, with some sweat and tears in the mix. I remember last Christmas when my husband spent Christmas Day shoveling snow out of our new house because our roof wasn’t on yet. That’s the sweat I’m referring to and all the many times we squeegeed and shopvaced water from the subfloor and crawlspace. It was all worth it from groundbreaking to when we finally moved in!

We added some amazon affiliate links for things we bought were we could find stuff online.

Christmas Home Tour

Welcome friends! Come on in and let me pour you a virtual cup of hot cocoa, topped with all the marshmallows! Thanks for being part of Natasha’s Kitchen family and sharing in our joy. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a Wonderful New Year to you!!

P.S. This caddy is from Pottery Barn along with the “Bambi”mug and “Fred” the snowman mug. The 2 tiny snowman mugs on the top tier are from Sur la Table. I have this caddy parked next to our Jura Espresso machine and it was so fun to be able to make a special cup of coffee for friends who stopped in for a visit.

I absolutely love being able to decorate the kitchen. We’ve been changing the decor with every new video on youtube and the holiday decor has been my favorite!

The Christmas Living Room:

Christmas in our new home is finally here and I feel like I made up for lost time. I started my decorating the day before Thanksgiving (as evidenced in my Instagram stories) and it turned out just as dreamy as I had hoped. I want to add more festive decor every year until we are officially the Christmas house (good thing there’s plenty of storage!).

Big thank you to Irina of Mint & Pine Design who helped us tastefully accessorize our living room to make our house presentable for the tour!

Above the mantle is a Samsung Frame TV or “Art TV” – I love that it rotates through various artwork because settling on 1 picture would be way too hard. The art tv is awesome! Also, we change the photos in the rotation to be seasonally appropriate – such a neat invention.

I finally found my stockings at Marshall’s (Queenwest brand 19″ stockings). I feel like you just know when you’ve found the right ones. And I scored these at $13 each.
The garland on the mantle, deer and little trees were from Hobby Lobby.

Christmas Card Holder Idea

I particularly love how this Christmas card display turned out. It was really easy – I used some red and white kitchen string (practical and great for gifts too!), secured with 3M stick-on hooks then I made red bows with some old red ribbon I had and purchased small cothespins at Target.

We hung this in the entrance of our home. I bet it would be lovely over a fireplace also!

At the entry of our house was this mailbox – the kids had alot of fun hiding things in there. This came from Hobby Lobby.

Real Tree or Fake Tree??

We had a real tree this year after years with a fake one. It was a grand tree – measured at 11 feet and we knew right away it was our tree when we spotted it in the tree lot.

The theme was colorful this year – mainly because it was so big that it needed all the ornaments and because everything seemed to sparkle more after being in storage for 4 years.

I don’t know if I’m 100% convinced with having a real tree. Every day I touched it and worried that it was dying and it stopped drinking water 2 weeks before Christmas. I didn’t do that with my fake tree – ha! Although a fake tree has it’s flaws especially if it’s pre-lit and a section of lights goes out!

Which camp are you in – real tree or fake tree?

Oh and the lights on our tree were from Costco and I LOVE that they switch between colored and warm white LED lights (or you could choose one or the other). The kids loved the colors and I loved the variety. It took about 10 boxes and a stiff neck to light this mega tree (maybe that’s a good reason to buy a smaller tree!) 😉

Christmas Village Decor

I’ve always wanted a Christmas village and I bought the one for $100 at Costco this year. I adore this little village and my goal is to see it expand in the future. After I posted photos of it on Instagram stories, several of you gave me the idea for a snow blanket under the village – thank you! It looks way more awesome!!

The Best Advent House

This was the top rated advent house on Amazon. It’s so detailed, high quality and the doors stay closed. We bought if for about $85, but the price doubled after December 1st so get it early! I love that the compartments are big enough for small toys. The kids looked forward to this every morning.

Now all we need is a nativity set. I’m on the hunt for a good one and if you can point me to something cool, I’d be so excited!! Jesus is the reason for the season after all and I want the Christmas story and birth of Jesus to take center stage in our home.

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6

Merry Christmas to all and to all a Peaceful night!

Loads of Love and Christmas Cheer from Natasha, Vadim, Big D and Little D