home for the holidays

the last of the turkey leftover is gone and with countless trips to the garage for more of the stored christmas decor, our tree is finally up. despite the presence of the little rascal (who still managed to break two ornaments with a flick of a finger), we succesfully decorated the house from top to bottom!

kudos to the efforts and help of my mother and sister (who was in town), now the other posing problem is taking it down - ha! in the meantime, we are enjoying the festive mood in our home and I'm loving the apple-pine-cinnamon scent of christmas in the air!

i am excited to use square fresh pine wreaths this year. it gave our front door a more rustic feel that matches it's medieval look!

the past years we've had our traditional red and gold tree and i've always wanted to try silver and gold. i've bought 4 boxes of silver ornaments from costco last year which i've never put up and i'm able to hang it out this time!

the leftover red ornaments that didnt make it to our tree, i added to the staircase banister, mantle and buffet table garlands. i guess our house is not completely gilded but adding the red touches made it more festive and "christmas-y"!

of course there's some technical issues involve (and im not talking about installing the christmas lights), ms. londen of sixty-fifth avenue posted about how difficult it is to take perfect photographs of the christmas tree and i echo her sentiments. i dislike taking pictures during the day because i believe the complete beauty of the tree shows with the speckled lights on at night. and oh boy, it is HARD to get the perfect shot (plus adding the fact that i'm using an archaic camera). oh well, i did try my best. this last shot captured a portion of the staircase banister and our formal dining room with its christmas lights glory!