Champagne Flutes (this is my parent's tree from a few year's ago)
I know most of you aren't decorating for the holidays until after Thanksgiving, which I totally get! As a blogger, I love to use the decor as a backdrop for my photos, so I always need to get an earlier start than most. I think decorating for the holidays is SO much fun and the decor brings me joy and happiness. This year we are decorating even earlier than last year and we have decided to make a 'date night' out of it so I thought I would share in case it inspires you! Typically, at my parent's house, we decorate the tree the Sunday after Thanksgiving (usually during the Steeler game) and we have always done it as a family in one day. I have always loved this tradition.
Last year, in our house (our first Christmas in our house together), we put up our tree and started decorating it throughout the week. A little here, a little there. We hadn't yet gotten our 'sentimental' ornaments from either sides of our families and we didn't have much Christmas decor, either, so decorating was kind of on and off for several weeks. It was fun, don't get me wrong, but it didn't really feel like an 'event' if that makes sense.
So this year now that we have all of our decor, we are planning on getting our favorite takeout, opening a really good bottle of wine, blasting Christmas music, and going to set up and decorate the tree in one night together (read more about our Christmas tree, here).
I know sometimes decorating for the holidays can seem like a chore or just another thing to knock off your to-do list, but we wanted to make it an activity this year where we really focused on the small joys. Hopefully, this will end up being a tradition for many years to come!
We collect ornaments based on travels and life moments, so it will be fun to pull each one out and give it the attention it deserves and reflect on the memories that each ornament holds.
Another example that we plan on doing later in November/early December is to have a night where we wrap presents. I actually love to wrap gifts, I find it very calming and creative and I always feel so satisfied once I see the finished product of all the gifts beautifully wrapped. But we usually wrap some here and there and don't make a 'night' out of it. So that's another fun thing we have to look forward to.
Other ideas are an afternoon of baking cookies and other great treats. You could do a holiday movie marathon. A fun night of cooking up some delicious traditional family recipes that you haven't made in a while. Eventually, once others have decorated their outdoors for the holidays, you could drive around to look at the lights or even go somewhere like Oglebay that has really cute drive-through light displays! You could do a holiday cocktail tasting where you create a bunch of 'mini' cocktails (kind of like a wine or beer flight) all with different recipes and you can rate which you like best and possibly find a new cocktail to love.
Another fun idea is to get one of these Christmas books which acts as a journal throughout the years! I just got it and I love it SO much. It would also make a great gift. It would be a fun night to reflect on your holiday season together and write down your memories and choose photos to print for the book. I am going to retroactively fill this out for last year and then continue to fill it out year after year!
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