Holiday Houseful

1. as many as a house will accommodate: a houseful of weekend guests.

 

 

Happy Holidays all! I hope that your Christmas weekends were full of magic and sparkle and feasts of plenty. Or some quiet and cozy time in with Chinese food….or both!! Mine has been excellent so far (family is still here) and was all of the above. I am working on cozy as we speak, having just shoveled out of the 18″ of snow we have so far!

 

I may have mentioned before that for the first time ever my family was coming to me for Christmas. I may have mentioned it more than once because I may have been out-of-my-mind excited about it!! This is also the first Christmas for Coach and I in our new home, so as you might have imagined, I have spent the past several weeks, ok, maybe a month or so, getting our house ready for it's holiday debut. Pictures got hung, light fixtures were finally installed, closets were cleaned out and air mattresses were located. Things that had been on our list since we moved in like weather-stripping and bed sheet matching-upping were finally executed and the corners were swept out…which felt really good. And of course, there was hall-decking and tree-trimming.

 

Since my family was traveling far to be with us, and since Santa was coming to a new place for my cousin's little girls, I tried to make it very comfortable and a little extra special for my guests. And while it is all a work in progress, I was pretty happy with the way it turned out. I made cones out of paper for each guest, filled them with a little trinket, some candy and directions from our house to places like the mall, Target and CVS, then hung them on the doors to their rooms or on hooks in the guest bathroom. I put together a little basket of washcloths and some toiletries in case anyone forgot anything, and saved fancy soaps and shampoos from my hotel travels and lined them up in the showers so they would feel pampered. I turned down beds and fluffed pillows and tried to make it as cozy a stay as possible for 9 adults and 2 children (I guess cozy may have been the right word for it!).

 

Having my home full of people I love, eating, drinking, cooking and hanging out together is my very favorite thing in the world. Even though Santa brought me some lovely things, I think that may have been my greatest gift.

 

Above are some photos of the details from before they got here…my Mom, who is one of the few people in my life that will notice all of the details, and totally appreciate them, encouraged me to take some pics before everyone arrived, knowing that it would never again look quite as lovely. So I have some more decor photos to share over the coming days.

 

xoxo