Winner, Winner, Turkey Dinner!

And you thought I said I was giving away FABRIC leftovers rather than FOOD leftovers, right? Ha! Okay, seriously, yes, I have a winner for the Christmas fabric scraps giveaway: Anna of Woolie Mammoth who has a daughter-in-law who is expecting a baby in January and whose daughter-in-law's birthday is on Christmas--Anna thought she'd make something for the mom-to-be. Anna, please email me your mailing address, and I'll get the package off to you. Thanks to all of you for playing along.

Now I'll tell you a little bit about my Christmas decorating--first the "main" Christmas tree.

For several years, we've had what I rather politically-incorrectly refer to as "the gay guy tree," because it was decorated mostly with male fairy/woodland creatures and jeweled fruit. Pretty, but somewhat dark and a little more opulent than felt right in our small house. For the past two years, I wanted to do something different but nothing else seemed better for our yellow/red/brown living room.

This year, Hubby put up our tree--which is artificial and pre-lighted--on Friday morning, and as I looked at it, it occurred to me that I knew just what direction I wanted to go with it. Unfortunately, a Black Friday excursion to JoAnn's and Michael's was required, but neither store was too awfully crazy.

Here's what the tree looks like now:

And here's the magazine that inspired the look:

The tree on the magazine cover is much more full of decorations, and maybe I'll add more to mine over the next couple years--it will give me something to "collect" and think about. But for this year, at least, I wanted a little less red, and a little plainer, streamlined look.

What I noticed in the magazine and liked the look of--long before I decided I wanted to adopt the idea for our house--was the addition to the tree of the silk greenery with the white edging. Here's a close up of our tree--you can see I've added the same greenery:

Someone who shopped at JoAnn's must have had the same idea, because they only had one lonely, sorry-looking stem of the greenery. At Michael's, though, I found what I needed, and I cut each stem into three pieces to tuck into the branches.

I also grabbed several stems of white "pip berries" to tuck into the branches:

I'm not too excited about the white ribbon "garland" and I'm sure I'll change that next year, but I'm not sure what I'll do instead; it will give me something to think about during the intervening year.

This year, I simply used ornaments I already had from past years. Hubby was pretty darn thrilled that I finally used the clear glass "icicle" ornaments I bought years ago and never could seem to incorporate into any of my trees or decorations.

By the way, speaking of Hubby and decorating, I know you'll be interested to learn that the fairly large sponge he brought back from Florida seems to have found a home atop his bedside lamp shade. Yep, once I put the lamp shade back on the lamp, Hubby added the sponge to the top, like some crazy lamp hat. And you know what? I've just been struck with an idea. I think I'll buy one of those fuzzy red Santa hats and put IT on top of the sponge. After all, I still need to decorate our bedroom. I think I'll go to bed and sleep on it. Goodnight!