With Boughs of Holly

I’ve already written about decorating our Christmas tree, but I thought I’d show you a few more holiday decorations I’ve put up around the house.  Since our tree is in our front living room and isn’t seen from the family room where we spend most of our time, I always like to decorate our mantel, too.  Years ago, I found some basic wooden trees and spiced them up a little with berries and glitter.  They come out every December and stay up through January, and the boys enjoy looking at the “tiny trees” while they play.

(My simple Christmas mantel.)

Ryan’s parents have given us several small, wooden nativity ornaments throughout the years, so I gathered them into a group, along with my two Matryoshka dolls that are so much fun.  All together, they create a natural Christmas vignette, and I love the simplicity of it.

(A closeup of the nativity ornaments.)

Our front room is literally flooded with winter light this time of year, which makes it fun and easy to photograph.  Here’s our tree in the middle of the day.  I should add that we inherited the artificial tree from Ryan’s parents, and it is probably over 20 years old now.  How’s that for recycling?  I think it looks fairly real, and it even sheds needles as much as the real thing, too.

(Our “faux” Christmas tree in natural light.  The boys love to touch the ornaments.)

And Ryan’s photographer friend recently loaned us his 14mm prime lens, the type used for photographing larger scenes.  Ryan has been experimenting with it and captured these shots of our entire living room, a feat I’ve been unable to accomplish with our standard 50mm lens. It’s so much easier to photograph this way, and now I know how they shoot those house tours on Apartment Therapy!

(A view of our living room, decorated for Christmas.)

(Another angle of the room.)