christmas in my living room

Hello friends, hope you all are well and doing the best you can during this pandemic. Just about every day I hear about someone else I know that's Covid positive. Even for those of us who are (thankfully) not ~ and I know that could change on a dime ~ sometimes the stress and anxiety of living through this tough time can get unnerving. 

Thanksgiving this year was just the two of us at home. We found a stuffed turkey tenderloin at Trader Joe's, and then I made mashed potatoes, bourbon corn casserole, Brussels sprouts with pecans, and cranberry-orange relish. After that delicious meal, we went for a quick walk, then came back home to have a Zoom meeting with extended family. It was lovely, but different. 

The day after Thanksgiving, Brian brought up the couple of boxes of Christmas decor from the basement and I laid most of it out on the coffee table. The next few days were spent putting touches of decor around the house; mainly in the living room and kitchen. Nothing fancy with my Christmas decor. I like to keep it as simple as possible. To be honest, the first couple of days, I was ready to throw my hands up and say forget it. Between removing regular decor and bringing it all down to the basement (lots of trips), and playing around with where to put all the Christmas decor in the house, I was getting frustrated. Some people find this relaxing and enjoyable, I know. The funny thing is, I usually love puttering with decor. But this year...I just wasn't feeling it.

Now that it's done, I am enjoying it, so it's all good. Thought I'd show you the simple touches around my small living room. This is the "entryway" when you come in through the front door. We've been putting up a table top tree for the past 11 years instead of a regular sized tree. In the past, we put the tree on top of the buffet in our living room. But we got rid of the buffet this year and now the only place we had room for even a tabletop tree was the bench in the entryway.

The teardrop shelf you see on the wall to the left holds a vintage Christmas postcard.

I love these vintage wooden Santa bells that I found last year in an antique shop.

Brian's coworker gifted him with this pretty cardinal lantern that lights up and has sparkly glitter floating around.

Just one Christmas pillow on the sofa this year. Oh ~ I moved the sofa from its original diagonal position to under the opening where the old sofa used to be. It works much better for the room this way. That ugly IKEA chair you see poking out will hopefully soon be relinquished to the basement. I've been looking everywhere online (including FB Marketplace) for a blue velvet armchair. No luck so far. The few chairs I found that I did like were overpriced.

The corner stand is new. I ordered it online from Target.

This is one of the Christmas decorations that truly means something to me and gets displayed every year. I got it at a craft fair back in the early 90's.

Sorry for the angled photos of the fireplace, but our living room is so small, that if I backed up enough to take a straight-on photo, I'd crash into the coffee table. Even if I moved the coffee table, there's the couch. Though I suppose that would result in a softer landing. I shouldn't even joke about that. I've tripped over things and fallen three times within the past couple of months. I'm notoriously klutzy and all three times, I wasn't being mindful. Trying to do several things at one time and not paying attention to the task at hand. No worries, I'm fine. 

 I kept the mantel simple with bottle brush trees and angels on one side of the mirror.

Wish the fairy lights were brighter for my daytime photos, but it's been sunny here the past few days so the lights don't show up. That's OK ~ I'll take the sunshine any day!

The table beside the couch holds a vintage sleigh and ornaments...

while the shelving unit above the table gets a little bit of adornment.

I'll be back soon with photos of Christmas decor in my kitchen. Thanks for stopping by! 
Be well and safe. 💓