My tree is nothing spectacular but it's a "kid-decorated" tree with mainly ornaments that are either handmade or meaningful in some way (we try to buy an ornament whenever we travel, and I buy each of the kids their 'own' ornament each year from Hallmark). In the same room is our moose head, who is stealing the show this year with his new Santa hat. Sorry the pic is sort of blurry. He wouldn't stop moving. ;)

Here are my kitchen chicken trees!

Love all the trees but Bungalow house I cracked up when I read your little comment from kitty. That was so funny I almost pee'd my pants! I have a kitty too so I know exactly what you mean.

Zipdee, I want to live in your house. Every time you post a picture, I marvel at how cheerful and quirky (in a *good* way) it is. I actually printed your pic of the Santa "trapped" in the candy jar and am going to copy you... hope you don't mind!

Here's ours -- Done except for the tree skirt. I couldn't really get the whole tree (10') into one good picture, so here's most of it ;-)

Beautiful trees everyone! Isn't it fun to see all the different ways everyone decorates them. I am still learning our new camera so I tried the other night to get some decent pics . Bonnie
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OH Every one's trees and decorations are so BEAUTIFUL!

We also have a new little kitten and while reading this post I have already had to chase her off the kitchen garland three times. GGGGRRRR I did not put much on that garland,just the pink bells and a strand of beads.

We do not have a mantle so I decorated the top of the gun cabinet. I did not have it in me to get a tree up so this is it for this year.

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Closer
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Had to do just a little vintage. I do not think Abby can get up to these I hope. Vintage center piece.
{{gwi:1855696}}Maybe next year she will have mellowed and I can do a tree again.

Chris

Season's greetings, everyone! Cyber visiting your homes to see your lovely trees and decorations has been very enjoyable. Thank you!

I completed my decorations over the weekend. Aside from rearranging things differently I pretty much decorate the same year-to-year. With the house ready, now on to baking.

Thanks for sharing your lovely treasures and I hope everyone has a wonderful season.

Here is a link that might be useful: Christmas Decorations 2009

Oh wow! You all have been busy over the weekend. Fantastic, I've very, very much enjoyed looking through all the pictures .. I'm in love with the trees of all shapes and sizes! Thanks so much to everyone for posting them. :)

Oakleyok .. thanks for the kind comments! I'll try to get some more pics up for you. :)

Texas Hottie .. Gorgeous tree! Love the rich colors you've used.

Cyn .. we normally use a faux tree, but this year went real and have really been enjoying it.

Kiko .. that is such a neat idea for a tree. Love the note to Santa, we have the same thing in a sign.

Lesmis .. love your beach inspired tree, it fit in so beautifully with your room!

Karezz .. Lovely, festive mantle!

Monicakm ... I'm so sorry the ornaments you've been collecting are missing, that's awful! I love that picture of the cookies out for Santa, how sweet! If we left those down here .. there would be some very happy doggies and a hungry Santa. :)

Sueb20 .. Your moose head is awesome, what a fun addition to your room! :) I'm flattered you liked my Santa jars. I have kind of a quirky sense of humor and my house tends to emulates that. My youngest DD, who's a pip .. saw the Dear Santa, I can explain sign and said, Mom you need to explain more to Santa than I do .. Why exactly is his head on a platter. :O Stinker .. I was trying to elevate it. ;)

Furletcity .. I told you over on the chicken post, I adore and covet your chicken trees! :)

Sweeby ... Wow, big beautiful tree an it looks fantastic with the other elements in your room!

Bonnie ..Your tree looks stunning up against your red walls, very, very pretty!

Shades of Idaho .. fantastic displays! I love the vintage center piece.

Sis .. wonderful! I totally adore your bird ornaments too!

FMRoberts .. Your home looks just beautiful decked out for the holidays!

I've been busy stripping a huge cabinet I bought a while ago over the weekend. So I only got a few more things done. I'm working on a counter top kitchen tree, but it's not there yet.

I transplanted a 3 gallon poinsettia in to a thrifted $2 punch bowl. It's on the counter here .. but currently setting on my dining table. I'm actively searching for a big round table to cut down for the living room (red room), if I can find one the poinsettia will find a new home on it.

The girls have been busy decorating their room upstairs too. These are last years pictures, but it looks exactly the same this year .. they spent the weekend making snow flakes with their friends and hanging them.

I love love love seeing everyone's Chirstmas Decorations! I'll add a few (well okay, a dozen) of mine:

Kelly .. your home look gorgeous all decked out for the season! Adorable puppers too, I love the relaxed looks on their faces! :)

I finally got two second to put together my kitchen tree today. I found these little chocolate wrapped ornaments, they already had the strings and everything. They're so cute .. there's Christmas knomes, bells and Santa faces. With them I used vintage pom pom trim and red ric rac for garland. There's Christamas cupcakes under the cake container that my oldest DD made and added some hot coco for easy access to have with them.

Used a vintage candy bowl for the 'stand' :

Closer

Lights off

OH My OH My so glad I cam back to enjoy more pretty decorations.

Kellyeng your children are gorgeous. And Zipdee are those Santas Chocolate? Yum Yum.

Lovely decorations all. I really am enjoying them.

Chris

I worked on this Sunday and today. By myself alone. But It was worth it!! The ornaments are from 1950's to now. I am the inheritor of my parent's stash of x-mas goodies. My dad made all of the cutout painted ornaments. They are very precious to me. I splurged on all new decor this year. 2 new trees, new front door garnishments (retasked old set to back door. Here goes:
Music Room Tree:

Detail:

Main Tree:

Detail:

One more for the road:

More later if I ever do get finished. I'm hosting the company x-mas party so Lord, help me!
Casey

Oh my...beautiful trees and decorations. I finished my tree tonight and went around photographing my house. I'll try to get them all posted tomorrow. Should I start a new thread? This thread will probably be filled by tomorrow.

Shades of Idaho .. Yes and they are good chocolate too. The girls and I had to each sample one as we were putting the tree together last night. ;) I told the kids when it gets closer to Christmas they could 'pick' off the tree. :) I think by next year I'd like to have an assortment of vintage cookie cutters and kitchen tools to hang on a kitchen tree.

Casey .. Wonderful decorations and trees! I love that your Dad made the cutouts, how special they have to be to you .. I sure it brings great memories to hang them.

Newhomebuilder, I can't wait to see your house all decked out for the holidays :)

Zipdee - I love your chocolate tree too! What a wonderful idea. I will have to remember that when I start having grandchildren.

I have been gone all day have not had time to upload my photos to PB yet. I'll work on them tonight and post tomorrow.

kellyeng - What a wonderful photo of your babies! I hope to be able to get my JRT to pose in front of our tree.

monablair - I meant to mention earlier that your Josiah is adorable. I come from a long line of Josiah's, from my brother and all the way up to great, great, great grandfathers and more! Although biblical, it is an unusual name that isn't used often.

I finished the tree and the front door:

Just for the heck of it:

Sombreiul, I love your Daily Bread print in your dining room. My grandfather had that very same print in his study---I still remember it from when I was a little girl visiting.

Beautiful warm colors.

Gorgeous everyone, thanks for posting. I'm going to try to get some shots of mine tomorrow!!

We are traveling over the holidays to visit our children in Charleston, SC and Athens, GA, and will be gone nearly two weeks around Christmas, so probably won't be doing a tree this year for the very first time. I'm cheating here by putting up last year's tree. DH still wants a tree, yet with me being the only one to do all the lights, box retrieval from the garage attic, ornament sorting, etc., etc, (sigh), it's a daunting task. I'm hoping that seeing everyone else's decorated trees will satisfy his desire to see the pretty lights. All the trees here on GW look lovely!!

nanny2a - I hope you will be able to do a tour of homes while in Charleston - my favorite place to be during the Christmas season! Athens will also be pretty. You are lucky to be able to visit both cities during the holidays!

Got my photos posted to Photo Bucket last night. When I get a break today, I will work on making a post on Garden Web. It's very photo heavy!

Wow, beautiful trees and decorations everyone. I love the outside shots too, and of course love the pet photos too can't forget our fur babies!

This is a few shots of my tabletop tree in my den/library. I am still working on my main tree in the LR, I will post it when I am finished.

Here is a link that might be useful: my blog

With the addition of a new dog who is experiencing her first Christmas, (well not really... She was born on Christmas day last year. She is aptly named Holly!) this is what mine looks like THIS year, LOL! She loves picking all the soft ornaments off the tree and I dare not add the ribbons yet! Hence the "fence" of chairs!

LOL

I just love seeing everyone's holiday decorations!

Hehe kmcg85, you can pretend its like a White House tree behind ropes! Our puppy is about a year and a half old and he has been sniffing everything, but knock on wood he's not pulled anything off yet! He has eaten a few of the fake needles that have fallen though!

Here is our big tree in our family room. I got a tripod for my birthday yesterday and don't know how to seat the camera on it properly yet, so all my new pictures are tilted. We don't have a fireplace in this house so no mantle, I bought an old horse pull to hang our stockings on until we add onto the back of the house and put in a fireplace sometime in the future.

Kat :)

Ha-ha! Show-off! I can't even get a decent pic of my kids in front of the tree, never mind the dogs! So cute!

We did a cut-your-own tree this year. It's a bit Charlie Brown-ish, but it's sweet. And a closeup of my favorite decorations, strung cranberries and dried orange slices.

Bungalow House, I LOVE your tree! I used to string popcorn and cranberries. Then I switched to Spanish moss for the garland. Now I do without.

Judith, those icicles are gorgeous! Are they glass?

Nanny2a .. Beautiful tree! I hope you have a wonderful holiday visiting your kids and a safe trip!

Judith .. As always your tree and color scheme are fantastic! I love your table cover and the wood pug is wonderful!

Kmcg .. I love your tree and that chair fence is too funny!

Lemis .. Beautiful tree and very handsome puppers! Are they border collie? We have two Aussies, brother and sister.

Bungalow House, wonderful tree, it has a fantastic homey look and feel to it!

lesmis, love your photo of your tree with the dogs, just great. Don't worry you will get used to the tripod and you will find you will wonder what you ever did without it for interior photos.

Bungalowhouse, I love your tree too, I do miss having a real tree.

Natal, yes those icicles are glass, I have collected them for years purchasing them during the after Christmas sales. I have hundreds LOL

LOL Kmcg, I think the dogs cooperate better than the kids most days!

Zipdee, we used to have an Aussie, what a special dog she was! The one on the left is a tri Border Collie (completely nuts!!) and the one on the right is an English Shepherd (very active but not quite as nutty).

Judith, I need you to come show me how to use this dang tripod, it has a level on it too, but I still had lopsided pics! You don't live that far away, get in the car and get up here lol!

Bungalowhouse, that tree is perfect! It reminds me so much of the trees we always had growing up and I also miss having a real tree!

Kat :)

oh what a wonderful thread! I love seeing all of your trees and other decorations. so much color and different styles.

I haven't had a tree in many, many yrs. well, I do sort of ... if I manage to get the lights glued on this year - and find my camera I'll post it. maybe. I did finally buy glue.

love seeing the puppies and babies too.

kgwlisa - and i loooove the lace curtains at your window. do you remember where you got them? I want lace curtains in my new place and yours are just beautiful. tell me you didn't need a 2nd mortgage to buy them...

sombreuil_mongrel! I don't want to hijack this thread, but do you have any clear pics of the arch between your rooms? It is lovely.
Loretta

Hi,
Yes, and I also have the original sketches and full-size patterns. I deigned and built it in 1983.

Casey

Casey, that is absolutely gorgeous! If you designed and built that, you have some serious skills! Wow, I love your room also.
Loretta

These are the decorations in the front of our house:

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kiko - Beautiful home!

Love your dining room table. I am sure it gets lots of use! :)

Zipdee - where did you find the chocolates with the strings? They would be perfect for the rosemary "tree" I'm giving my aunt!

Casey - what a treasure to have your father's handmade ornaments. Someone beat me to saying I love your doorway trim/arch. Thanks for sharing a full pic!

Well, we're getting there (though I know our tree won't look as nice as any here). DD has been asking to put it up, we almost did put up artificial one Wed when kids had snow day but I've been patching the wall. Tree (artificial or real) *IS* going up this weekend! In the meantime, here's what the area looks like since we've moved the loveseat out of the bay and I've been patching/painting...

Started with a sunken spot in the sheetrock that got worse every time I filled/painted it

Found a void in the gypsum after I cut away the (intact) paper

Cut a "plug" of sheetrock and patched it in (no tape)

Have been priming and painting the past few days

Paint still wet - I hope it doesn't dry blotchy or I will put a 3rd coat on tonight!

Tree pics coming soon - I promise!

(Porch/door pics too, though wreathes might not be hung outside, it's too cold for the Command hooks to stick!)

Here is our tree for 2009. We relented and purchased a live tree and it is our first white pine. It was a bit different working with this type of tree but in the end we had fun working on it. It still needs tweaking and is by no means perfect but it is special. Excuse the mess, haven't had time to put things back and cover things up yet! One thing I love about our tree every year is that we have all of the ornaments that my DS made since he was a little boy. Also ever since he was a freshman in high school, he made me an ornament each christmas. Now that he is in college I received a couple of ornaments via his travels. I made sur that all of those were put on the tree as well.

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Your tree is precious, deborahnj. I recognize some of the same handmade ornaments that my children (27,24,22) have made over the years.

LOL LOL LOL on Holly's First Christmas tree.

So glad I cam back. So many more wonderful homes to see. Beautiful Every one.

chris

deborahnj - Ar first I thought that I was seeing things - I hadn't posted pics of my tree yet! I can't believe all those ornaments have survived all these years (esp. the paper ones). Are you going to give those all to him once he's got a place of his own?

Anyway, we finally put the tree up last night (after seeing Princess and the Frog and buying teacher gifts, making cookies). Ta da!

I'd like to say that *everything* on the tree was made by a loved one, but we've got some store-bought wooden beads that look like cranberries, some Mardi Gras beads that were in the box and DD wanted them, some big pinecones that used to smell like cinnamon, and candy canes we bought yesterday (of course the kids had to sample them).

We do have the reindeer with "hand" antlers DD made 3 yrs ago (grownup - grandma? I forget - helped with the eyes)

Some stars we bought at Michaels and DS painted (blush - I confess I forget what year - maybe 2001?), several "cookies" he has made in early grades (strange combination of applesauce and cinnamon?). He wants to make gingerbread (no time today - did 3 dozen chocolate cookies and then put a roast in, the power went out half an hour later! Thank goodness it came back on after cycling a few times. Next year's big gift - a generator!)

Ceramic stars my cousin made for us (1 big one and 2 small ones) as wedding favors when she got married in 2005, glass ball with small gold beads another cousin made one year (DS wanted red glass ornaments - maybe next year), a buck and a doe we bought at one of DS's school bazaars a few years back

And my favorites - knitted skate, stockings, sweaters, etc. that my grandma made about 10 years ago (she died in 2001).

I also have some "stained glass" ornaments my siblings made for me about 25 years ago, and a stuffed gingerbread man I embroidered when I was a teenager.

I was telling DD that DS had a jump on her, she'd better get crackin' so she made a few more ornaments today - incl. the star on top of our tree. DS actually thought of that one after seeing the straw angel was kind of blah, I was thinking DD could make a yellow paper 5-pointed start but DS wanted a Christmas star (18 points but we were lucky to get 10), and DD wanted glitter but I said foil would be easier (then regretted it as I was the one folding the foil as she taped it).

Oh and for zipdee, the stand we got (along with the tree that Mom decided was too big for their house) from my parents last year (though I think your glossy red one is prettier)

So much for the elegant blue and silver tree I wanted (and bought all the ornaments for last Dec 26). But I figured DD was still little, we had all these special family ornaments, I might as well let the kids enjoy decorating the tree for a few more years. Yes, we have multicolor (LED) lights! I have to find a Walmart with them in stock tomorrow since it's a new tree and new lights I'm short by about 20 ft.

Thanks all for the compliments. The trees here are all so beautiful!

All I can say is WOW - what gorgeous trees.

Kiko .. Your home looks just beautiful decorated for the holidays!

Ajsmama and Deborahnj .. how special and beautiful both of your trees are! Made and decorated with love, they are wonderful.

Ajsmama .. The chocolate ornaments are ALDIS .. I ran in for fresh mozzarella for homeamde pizzas and found them along the way.

Cattnapp .. WOW! Everything is just stunning and so tastefully presented, what a treat!

I want to thank everyone that has added pictures and shared their homes and trees. :) It's been such an enjoyable post to open and read every single time.

cattknap - Your tree and sideboard are gorgeous!

Here's our tree from last year, since we'll be gone for the holidays we didn't decorate this year. That may have been a wrong decision, as I'm missing seeing my home all decked out.

And here is our mantle. I change it out each year.

and lastly, our "baseball themed" tree in the library

What beautiful trees and decorations. I will have to get out my camera, sometime, I suppose. Thank you all for sharing, what a pleasure!!!!!

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