Merry and Bright Christmas Home Tour

In true frantic blogger fashion I was running through the aisles of Canadian Tire this morning with my daughter Alice, in search of just one more faux garland to complete our entryway decor. Thankfully Andrew was able to pull off a Christmas miracle (I can say that now that it's December 1st right), and got the whole thing up and lit in no time.

Welcome to our merry and bright Christmas home tour! Admittedly, I loathe the colour red so you won't see a lot of it inside our home but it just felt right with our almost black door and brick exterior. The garland here is a mix of three faux garlands, topped with lights and some actual cedar sprigs woven in. My daughter Isla and I are both allergic to real Christmas trees and branches so this is the extent of the real stuff right here.

Inside our front door I hung faux eucalyptus and a blooms from Ikea on our round mirror and snagged a prelit pretty garland (also during our morning trip to Canadian Tire) for a great sale price. I added some ribbon and I am loving this festive touch that our guests will be greeted with over the holidays.

Normally I would be downright horrified to show you these carpet sticks but many of you have reached out to me on Instagram and informed me that Chris Loves Julia just installed them and they're all the rage. I'm not buying it but my shame level has significantly decreased.

My husband referred to our Christmas tree as being decorated by a gang of four year olds, and part of me agrees with him - especially if you look real close. We don't really theme over here and many of these ornaments came from when I was little. The rest are a mishmash of homemade and annually acquired favourites. We did add on a turquoise tinsel garland last weekend so that is the one new item on the tree this year.

I did something fun this week and raided our wedding gift stash. You know the kind - the fancy boxes with the pretty things inside that you either no longer like or forget you actually have. I was pleasantly surprised to find five different candle holders and promptly added some white candles and set them out on our Ikea besta media unit.

This ball garland was quite the laughing matter on instagram because Andrew may have referred to it as looking like a piece of anatomy but now that it's styled up with some of my long time favourite Christmas treasures, I'm so happy with it. I love the contrast of all the white and sparkly things with the vintage credenza.

I also love adding small Christmasy touches in unexpected places, like on the ikea play kitchen, above door entrances and on bedside tables.

These stocking will go back downstairs before Santa arrives (well actually this afternoon because I just can't handle the red) but it was fun to see all of our Christmas things on the main level for this shoot.

I am also really taking in this living space this Christmas season as we have big things planned for this space in the new year. I also love how those two engineering prints over the couch are officially back in season. You can thank my laziness for keeping Christmas carol lyrics up year round.

The kitchen is one space I really love adding fun touches to for Christmas. The faux garland above the sink is always the first thing that goes up.

Our open shelves at Christmas basically turn into a bar. Who wants to visit?

Since this is the first year that we have a beautiful bathroom to show off I added a few green touches to our open bathroom shelves.

And I love a good asymmetrical garland over a round mirror with a side of bottle brush trees.

We keep the Christmasy stuff to a minimum in the bedrooms - adding a few tiny touches on our nightstands.

Thanks so much for stopping by our holiday home tour! Make sure to visit Jessica from The White Picket Farm House and Megan from The Blush Home blogs to follow along with their Christmas Home Decor Tours and happy decorating!