Decorating the tree is one of my favorite Christmas traditions! Growing up, it was tradition to decorate the tree on Thanksgiving morning while watching the Macy’s Day Parade.  Rob and I have our own tradition now of setting it up the day after Thanksgiving (aka in between shopping for Black Friday). [It’s the lesser of two evils: shopping or decorating]

The last two years I chose a silver and gold theme for the tree.  Although I still love this classy combo, I decided to switch it up this year.  I didn’t want the traditional red and green theme because we really don’t have any red and green in our house!  We tend to use shades of blue, gray, and white so it only made sense to make the Christmas tree that color scheme as well.

I spent a lot of time on Pinterest searching for inspiration for “coastal Christmas.”  I was overwhelmed by all the amazing ideas so this year I pretty much stuck to one room (I plan on adding pieces each year so that eventually the entire house will be coastal Christmas themed). [Yay! Can’t wait]

The white and silver flowers I already had from our silver and gold themed decor.  I went out and bought those nautical inspired stars from Pier 1 and they were the perfect addition!  Last year I used gold ribbon for the garland but this year I knew I wanted nautical rope, which I ended finding at Michaels.  I found a giant package of the blue ornaments from Hobby Lobby and that made a huge difference in brightening up the tree!  And of course, I’ve slowly been collecting nautical ornaments over the past few years and that made everything come together (p.s. how cute is that sailboat ornament?!).

As you can see I had a helper this year!  Gryff loves to play a game called eating the ornaments at the bottom (you’ll notice we don’t put ornaments on the lowest branches).   All in all though I’m quite happy with the tree this year.  I spent over a week perfecting everything so it does look a little different than the pictures above (aka the right side of the tree by the fireplace have way more ornaments now).

While we are talking Christmas decor, I thought I’d share a few other details of our decorating.  Every year for St. Nick’s Day, St. Nick (aka my mom) gifts us a Jim Shore Angel.  I have been collecting them for years and have about 14 of them now!  This year I split them between the fireplace in the family room and above the piano in the living room.  I love how each one is different and has such beautiful details.

And I can’t end this post without talking about our personalized stockings!  Rob’s parents gifted us these when we got engaged (four years ago this Christmas!) and we both adore them.  My stocking is a lighthouse [who’s surprised?!] and Rob’s is a Christmas train.  {Chooo Chooo!] They are the perfect touch to our Christmas decorating.

We hope you are enjoying this joyful holiday season!  From our family to yours, we wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Slàinte,

Shannon [and Rob]