Many people near and far come to Old Town this weekend to enjoy the festivities, and I like the exterior of our home to be ready for the occasion. 

This year's Scottish Christmas Walk Weekend kicked off on November 30 (the parade is always the first Saturday in December), so it felt super early to be buying our trees. But it also served as a great deadline to get us motivated since we also throw a formal scotch tasting and dinner party on the Friday night of this weekend! With all of the work on our basement project it's been tough to divide our time between fun and function, but by our party that night we were in pretty good shape as far as holiday decor goes.

Just like with our fall decorations this year, I tried to make use of as many fresh greens as possible. Our home in Maryland is a great source for fresh greenery, so I made a quick trip there to snip some evergreens and boxwoods, and cut a few berry-lined twigs. 

I'm not sure what the berry branches are exactly (my guess is some kind of invasive plant that while choking out surrounding vegetation, happens to look pretty this time of year). With my stash from the other house, the branches we trimmed off our live Fraser firs, and two dozen roses and a bunch of berries from the grocery store, I was ready to start making fresh arrangements.

Out front I added some of the fresh greens and red berries to our two urns, adding a colorful, festive feel. It was as easy as sticking the branches into the dirt. No wire, no tape, just a little elbow grease. 

I put a little more effort into decoration for the front door. Using a two foot long piece of scrap wood, I wrapped it in a red ribbon (affixing it with hot glue), and then using our staple gun tacked on pieces of fresh greenery and fresh berries.

I had intended to make two of these, one for each French door out front. But time was short before the party so I made just one for our interior door. A few years ago I picked up an antique horn in a junk shop, so I added this to the greenery to give it a little more visual weight and interest, topped it with a homemade plaid bow, and called it done. 

But back to the flowers I bought from the grocery store. I divided the two dozen roses and sprig of berries among three vases. 

I created a low, densely packed arrangement for our dining room table. 

For the living room I made a slightly taller arrangement adorned with the same plaid ribbon I used on the front door.

I also created a tiny arrangement for the family room, but in a total blogger fail, forgot to snap a photo of it. I can assure you it was lovely. (Sigh.) 

I also created a small natural arrangement for the kitchen. It sits behind our sink, next to the framed Christmas ornament box that was passed down to my grandparents.

Like we've done in years past, we put up a smaller live tree in our sun porch that features clear and mercury glass ornaments and white lights. 

And while we were able to put up our main tree, we simply ran out of time to decorate it before guests arrived. In an effort to make it look nice for our dinner party, we adorned it with lights, garland, our tartan topper, and a simple skirt made from a few yards of rough burlap. 

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After what has felt like an endless summer of intense rain and humidity here on the east coast, fall's cool, crisp days are more welcome than ever. And while I'm not quite ready to drape our home in the traditional orange and black of Halloween (give me another week for that), several seasonal touches of autumn have begun to make their appearance in our home.

Given all of our rain this summer, our gardens are looking remarkably lush this year. As a result, my pre-Halloween decorating approach has been to bring the outdoors in, and to celebrate the change in seasons with cuttings from my garden and small pumpkins purchased from a local farm stand. 

When hatching my decor plan I took a few minutes to walk around my garden to snip florals and leaves that I thought would make an interesting statement. This included a few stalks of pink sedum and branches of deep purple weigela.

I also nabbed a couple stems and leaves as well as a couple dried blooms from our giant hydrangeas, which grew like crazy this year (but failed to produce more than a handful of blooms). I rounded out my picking with a few pieces of fern leaves, dried Black-eyed Susans, and a little ivy. 

Using the garden cuttings, I created a small arrangement that hangs on the side porch, next to the door we use as our primary entrance to our home.

I picked up this metal container in a shop last summer during a visit to Morrison, Colorado just outside of Denver, and I love how I can change out the contents based on the season.

I carried this same natural approach Inside our house. our fireplace mantel also received some attention. 

Making just a few slight modifications transformed the look from summer to fall in just a few minutes. In our home I much prefer this look to an over-the-top display that covers the entire mantel. It's easier to assemble, we tend not to tire of it over time, and it doesn't cause a big mess when it's time to clean up.

I'm looking forward to creating a full-blown Halloween look later this month, but will be appreciating a softer approach to celebrating autumn these next few weeks. It's such a simple way to augment our decor with a little touch of autumn, and a great way to begin appreciating the change in season. Who knows, maybe next year we'll be using more of our own natural elements? I'm thinking planting a small pumpkin patch of our own is in order!

If you too are thinking ahead to Halloween, check out our Halloween Page for more details on past projects, party favors, and costume ideas for my favorite holiday.

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...my Aunt Margie surprised my cousins and me by inviting us around the dining room table. Years earlier, my Gram handed down a box of old family ornaments that had been passed down to her. 

The box contained beautifully tarnished orbs, in different shades of antique glass, and my aunt announced that she wanted each of the grandkids to have one of the ornaments for our trees. I was ecstatic! I was so excited to not only have a piece of our family's history, but since we decorate our tree in glass ornaments I knew it would be a perfect addition to our home. 

To maintain order and fairness (our German ancestors would be proud), the cousins drew numbers and then in the order of our numbers, each selected an ornament to take home. We selected until the ornaments were all claimed, and I ended up with a beautiful pink ornament, smaller in size, with a beautiful old silver cap.

As we each admired our picks, I noticed that the original box containing these beautiful ornaments was left behind on the table. 

I asked my aunt if she had plans for the box, and if not, would she mind if I took the box home with me? Her expression was a bit puzzled at first, but after explaining I had a thought on how to use the box, she smiled and gladly handed it over to me.

Fast forward eleven months to the start of this year's holiday season. The box had been safely tucked away in our attic, along with the new ornament, and I was excited to get started on my very simple project.

A quick trip to my local craft store resulted in the purchase of a backless picture frame -- the style of frame that you can see through the glass so both the front and back of the framed object is visible. I cleaned the frame with glass cleaner, and then carefully slit each corner of the box lid allowing the lid to lay flat. I sandwiched the lid between the glass, and reassembled the frame. 

In roughly two minutes I had created framed art that works as a holiday decoration. In light of saying goodbye to my Gram last month, it's even more special now that have a treasured piece of family history that will forever make me think of her during the holidays. 

While this project (and my new favorite Christmas decoration) cost only $12 for the frame and took a few minutes of my time, it's truly priceless in my book. 

The ornament itself, in case you're wondering, is proudly displayed front and center.

The little pink antique orb is the perfect addition to this year's tree, nestled among other glass ornaments, many of which also trigger a fond memory.

Seeing how much I love how the antique ornament box lid works as season art on our wall, I have my sights set on another similar project for the spring. Alex may hate how cluttered our linen closet has become, but I have another box lid that's been secretly tucked away in that very closet for the last few years. This box lid is from one of my favorite Easter candies that my other grandmother used to buy for us as kids. Those chocolate marshmallow eggs will soon be receiving the same frame treatment so that it can bring a little extra cheer to our springtime.

Home and holiday decor doesn't have to cost a lot of money and you don't have to make yourself crazy spending countless hours on Pinterest-inspired crafts. Sometimes the best projects are the simple ones that keep your loved ones top of mind and close at heart.

Do you have any special items you put out for the holidays that bring back special memories? Maybe you created something new this year that you know you'll treasure for years to come? I'd love to hear what keeps you inspired throughout the holidays and beyond.

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Tomorrow we'll be attending the Designer Tour of Homes to see how other residences in town are all decked out for the holidays (and congratulations to our winner of the ticket giveaway!), but first we thought you might like to see our Old Town Home all gussied up for the season. 

This year we took a more natural approach to our decor. Not only do I love the look, feel, and smell of fresh greens this time of year, but I'm having surgery early next month that will leave me on crutches for several weeks. So the less we take out of the attic now, means the less Alex has to put away next month when I'm laid up. So outside of our trees and a few cherished holiday items, we kept it pretty simple (and recyclable) this holiday season.

While decorating for the season can be a bit daunting, especially on a timeline, I tried to make it more fun this year by making sure we were well nourished to take on the tree trimming task. A great Christmas playlist, bottle of bubbly, and a cheese and fruit board made the evening a great family event. Too bad we decimated the food and drink before a single ornament went on the tree. Perhaps not my best executed plan.

These too lovable goof balls also kept us entertained while we hung all of our ornaments on the tree. As you can see, Christmas has everyone getting along this time of year. 

Christmas happens to be Mel's favorite time of year, when he can snooze under the boughs of the tree, warmed by the twinkling lights. We refer to him as "Sap Head" during the month of December because he sports a sticky noggin from all of his beneath-the-pine slumber.

We did manage to get the trees decorated. That's right. Trees, plural. Let's start with a look at the main tree, snugly situated between our living and dining rooms, with hand blown glass ornaments (218 to be exact, we counted as we hung), plaid ribbon, and red berry sprigs and garland. We love this spot because it's visible from our living, dining and family rooms, and it doesn't require moving any furniture. I added a couple red bows to our mantel topiaries, our embroidered stockings, and a few other touches and called the living room done.

Our second, smaller tree is set up in the sun porch. This tree features a silver and white theme with clear and mercury glass ornaments. The tree skirt is a piece of burlap that we wrap around the stand and wood box the tree sits on. I'm not sure what it is about the feel or smell of the burlap, but we can't keep Mel and Lulu off of it. Most of the month of December is spent crouched over rearranging the burlap as they like to pull it off and lay on it. You can see evidence of their antics in the photo below.

Using greens from a friend's yard and wrapped vases, ornaments and pine cones left over from 2012 when our house was on the home tour, I quickly assembled two small arrangements that I'll use as centerpieces when entertaining and as decor when we're not.

Tonight we're hosting a small group of friends, so in honor of the Scottish Christmas Walk weekend I've decked out the table and buffet with tartan runners. 

We even broke out our wedding stemware and china (after 12 years of marriage, I'm happy to report that as of last night all of our place settings now have the stickers removed!), and for the first time ever are using the leaves in our dining table. 

 A bow, fresh greens, ornaments, and pine cones round out the mantel in this room.

Outside we hung a live boxwood wreath on each window, complete with a tartan bow. Only having three windows makes this a manageable endeavor, no question. 

I also used surplus pine branches trimmed from our living room tree to spruce up the urns out front, and we added two electric candles to each window. 

Overall I'm happy with how our holiday decor came out. It wasn't too overwhelming, and the house still looks ready for the holidays. In fact, the only one of us who needed a nap when we were finished was Lulu. She was probably just worn out from fighting Mel for space on the burlap tree skirt.

What are your plans for holiday decor this year? Are you going all out to be the house with the most, or would you rather enjoy just a little festiveness to allow more time for fun?

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We consider ourselves very fortunate to live in such a wonderful place, so we always want to make sure we're doing our part to make the city's festive decor just a little bit more Christmassy. 

Sometimes it's a bit more challenging with a house that's only 15 feet wide. We need to do the most that we can without making the house look too tacky. This means that giant inflatables hanging from the rooftop and elaborate displays of computer controlled twinkling lights set to the thumping sounds of modern Christmas music are not on the table (much to Alex's dismay). 

Instead, we take a more subtle approach to Christmas decor, both inside and out, and attempt to present a festive face that's both enjoyable to passers by and guests, and sensitive to the age and aesthetic of our home.

Last year we went with simple boxwood wreaths from our front windows and I absolutely loved the look. As luck would have it, Trader Joe's (of all places) had some great boxwood wreaths this year for just $9.95 each.

I snapped them up as soon as I saw them, and I'm glad I did. They were gone the next time we went back to the store. 

Beyond our subtle exterior decor, we've applied our favorite items to the interior of our home. We placed our tree in the space between the first and second parlors as we've done in nearly every year.

Our tree is covered with blown glass ornaments we've collected over the years from many of our favorite places and vacations. This year we were happy to hang those ornaments we accumulated from the year, such as this one that we picked up during our trip to Rothenburg, Germany.

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Atop the fireplace mantle I made three matching floral arrangements using leftover tree clippings, some gold painted pinecones we had leftover from last year's decorations, a few glitter ball ornaments, and some ribbon wrapped around square vases. They were "free" decorations that only took a few minutes to put together and look absolutely great on the mantel!

For us, presents are as much for decor as they are for unwrapping, so this year I went with a soft and muted wrapping paper scheme with color coordinated bows and ribbon. It makes for a longer wrapping process, but it all sure looks great under the tree!

If you want to embark on a similar wrapping journey, take it from me, an experienced wrapper, it all goes much better with a glass of wine nearby.

We're not the only one that likes the tree and wrapping paper. Mr. Mel can always be seen lurking around the tree, looking for a ribbon to chew or some sap water to drink. It's his favorite time of the year.

Our dining room fireplace may not be a working fireplace (yet), but we still treat it as any good mantle should be treated by hanging our long and skinny felt stockings.

I incorporated the antique bugle I purchased last year in the wreath I hung over the mirror above the fireplace and love how it turned out. 

Rather than spread all of our various ornaments and decor all over the house, we were selective and just placed just a few of our many papier-mâché people in the dining room to watch over the gifts.

We carried our Christmas decorations into the kitchen, where we take advantage of the cool greys and whites with mercury glass candle holders and ornaments.

For a second year we added a second smaller tree at the back of the house in the sun porch. We didn't have one back there until just last year, but we really like how soft and festive it makes the room look.

For a long time we used traditional toppers on our tree, but now that I've seen the light of using beautiful bows, I think it will be the new tradition in our home for at least a few years.

This year wasn't quite so over the top for us since we didn't have the lofty expectations associated with hosting a home tour, so we decided to take it a little easier and go with our favorite decor. I think we appreciate it all just a little bit more now, and we'll really appreciate it when it comes time to take it all down and we have a bit less work to do. 

We hope you enjoyed he glimpse into this year's Christmas decor. How are you handling the decorations in your home? Are you going all out, more subtle, or no decorations at all this year? 

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