I'm decorating for Christmas this year, even with 3 toddlers

The triplets were only about 4 months old for their very first Christmas, so not exactly an exciting age for Christmas magic, but we were also in the middle of packing in preparation for our move to the new house. We never even got a tree and it was the most depressing Christmas ever.

This year, though, was finally my time to shine. For 7 years I dreamed of a mantle with garland, white stockings, and a perfectly natural tree with twinkling lights I would see shining in the eyes of my child. It’s finally here, and I get to share that magic with 3 babies who will grow up to look back on their Christmases fondly.

Since I know y’all are just really here for the deets, I’ve got plenty of links below for you.

TREE

The actual tree is real, cut down ourselves from a local tree farm. I couldn’t tell you which kind it is exactly, but according to their website, their cut your own trees are “Scotch Pine, Norway Spruce, Blue Spruce, Fraser Fir, Concolor Fir, Douglas Fir, and White Pine.” So it’s one of those haha.

The only thing we added to our tree is lights. I love the look of Edison bulbs, so when I saw these at Target I thought they might actually look really nice on a tree and decided to give them a shot. There are two different kinds, the clear, larger Edison looking bulb ones and then one that has 3 various sized spheres with a matte white finish.

Our tree skirt is from Gathre (sold out sadly) and the wrapping paper is Target.

Larger clear ones | Varying sized ones

GARLAND

This garland is a mix of real and fake, but the majority is fake. I started by buying two 9’ long pieces with pinecones from Michaels. I was really hoping for a more sprucey look, and they looked good online, but I was a little disappointed when I actually unboxed them. They looked like every other fake garland in existence and I regretted not buying the expensive Balsam Hills ones I came across. Still, I wanted to make them work and gave them a chance.

Once I added on the real trimmings from our tree and the very final fake piece of cedar, also from Michaels, to give it a bit of variance, it looked so much more natural and realistic! I threw in some pinecones collected from the yard in places that I felt needed them, securing them by wrapping the fake garland’s wire around them to hold in place.

x2 Pine Garland | x1 Cedar Garland

HANGING GARLAND

Hanging the garland is something really hard to explain via text, so your best bet is to look the video I’ll be sharing to my stories (I’ll save to my Home highlight). In a nutshell, we used these picture frame hooks that we nailed into the mantle, placing chunks of the garland in between the hook and the nail. There are three total.

The garland is layered with obviously a good portion of it stuffed to the left. I started with one piece halfway down the mantle, then started the second piece halfway down that piece. I cut off some of the end on both pieces and stuffed them in where there were gaps, doing the same thing with the real tree trimmings. The cedar piece went on last and on top, weaving in between some of the pine garland to get a realistic look.

STOCKINGS

My vision was varying types of knit white stockings with little name tags (those are in the works, being commissioned by my bestie who has a laser cutter and makes the best stuff). Home Goods has always had an awesome selection for chunky knit stockings, so I basically raided the place since I have 29483922 babies and we’re instantly a family of 5. Most of the ones I got had pom poms or buttons that I actually removed because I didn’t want the eye being drawn to any details.

The 3rd and the 5th stocking, however, came in a 4 pack that were all the same. As pretty as they are, I don’t like how they’re a bit smaller than the others and also would really like each kiddo to have one that’s different from their siblings. So I’m doing my best to find two more and have plans to return that 4 pack.

MANTLE DECOR

I struggled with what to put here for a while. Because my husband insists on needing a 65” inch above the mantle, my space is limited. Tall candles would have looked nice, but I couldn’t even get away with putting them on the ends without them covering the TV somehow.

After some trial and error, I ended up seeing these trees circulating some of my bougie Facebook groups along with some wooden ones from the dollar section of Target (no links for those). Sure enough, they fit perfectly under the TV and had enough variation in size to look almost natural.

Feel free to ask me any questions here or on Instagram and I’ll do what I can to answer. Overall this was much easier to do than I thought it would be, and I love how minimalist it is.