Decking Our Halls

It's funny, until we were homeowners, Andrew and I never paid much attention to holiday decorations.  I've always enjoyed wrapping gifts but never got into buying little decorative touches for my old place.  A $20 fake Target tree, a string of colored lights and a few ornaments, and I was good to go. 

But now that we have a house that we're proud of (ridiculously proud of, in fact) and the prospect of spending our first Christmas as a married couple (truthfully, not different from life before the wedding except the whole owning a house thing), we're inspired to make purchases like:

My first wreath ever (this is where I bring in the whole, "I grew up on an Army base overseas" thing and say that people didn't hang wreaths up in the countries I grew up in, therefore, I didn't grow up with this tradition) - this thing still smells fantastic:

Our very own stockings to hang over the mantel:

Speaking of mantels, did I mention that we finally had our chimney inspected and after a rather costly repair, we were ready to safely have our first fire in the house (and my first time living in a house with a fireplace, again, attributed to the reason mentioned above):

There were a few other purchases that I'll 'fess up to making (Christmas runner for our sideboard, Christmas kitchen towels, Christmas guest towels and Christmas soap for the guest bathroom [Sidenote: I am totally in love with Bath and Body Work's Winter Cranberry scent right now]).  This was all bought for a Christmas Adam gathering (Adam coming before Eve, December 23 coming before the 24th, it's a family term from Andrew's family) we held for our families.

The after-Christmas sales are going to be especially tempting this year. Usually, I stock up on half-off wrapping supplies but I think this year, I'm going to have my eye open for more decorative elements.