Bring on the Holidays! and NTT

Hey there, and welcome to Needle and Thread Thursday, my friends!  I have finally finished all of my Christmas decorating, and I'm cautiously optimistic about Tucker's ability to stay out of everything.  He was all up in the middle of things as I was putting it all out, but now that it's done, he seems to be less interested in it, which is a trend I hope continues.  

Here are photos of all six of my trees, plus some of my other favorite decor.  Of course, this isn't all of it!  I decorate my entire house and I can't possibly show everything, but you'll definitely see why it's such an undertaking.  These are all unedited photos, with the exception of the first one.

Our main tree-  This tree holds all of our vacation ornaments, as well as lots of "other" ornaments I've collected over the years that don't fit into any of my other themed trees.  This one is in our main family room, and I love that it holds so many memories.

Vintage aluminum peppermint tree-  This tree is from the early 1960's, and though I do have the color wheel that was traditionally used to light these kinds of trees, it gets very hot, and is noisy.  So instead it is lit with spotlights from below.  Since the tree is metal, it isn't safe to string lights on it.  This peppermint tree is in the corner of our dining room.

LSU tree- This tree is just so much fun and though my Tigers are disappointing me this season, I still bleed purple and gold.  I love the way the purple and gold ornaments stand out against the white tree.  This one brightens up my breakfast nook.

Santa tree- I love Santa, and my late mother-in-law shared that love.  In fact, she had Santas that she kept out year round!  When she passed six years ago, I inherited most of her Santa collection, including most of the ornaments on this tree, prompting the addition of this tree in 2020.  Usually, I use a flocked tree here, but I did a little tree switcheroo this year, and you'll see why!  The Santa tree is in the formal living room, but we're not very formal people, so this room actually houses our pool table.  

Winter Wonderland tree-  Here is the flocked tree!  I think the flocking looks amazing with the icy winter ornaments.  This one is full of feathers, deer, snowflakes, icicles, owls, white birds, and lots of berries, branches, and pine cones for a perfectly snowy woodland feel.  This tree is in my bedroom, which has a very colorful Anna Maria Horner quilt on the bed, so the muted tones of this tree are a perfectly peaceful addition to the room.  I love reading a book in bed at night with this tree lighting up the room.

In years past, I have used a super-slim pencil tree in this spot, and don't worry, that tree hasn't been cast aside.  It has been moved, and is now a brand new themed tree.

The Twelve Days of Christmas tree- Yep!  After I made my Twelve Days of Christmas quilt last January, I decided to start collecting ornaments for a Twelve Days themed tree.  It is in our foyer, so I knew it needed to be a super-slim tree for it to fit.  The one that was formerly my winter tree in my bedroom was the perfect size, which prompted the whole Christmas tree shuffle.

The Twelve Days tree is so much fun to look at, but much better up close.  Each ornament is one of the Twelve Days figures, so I included a couple of close-up photos of it.  Twelve Days of Christmas themed things are usually so colorful, so I trimmed this tree in jewel tones, which is totally different from the rest of my trees.

I can't possibly forget the quilts I hang on the wall.  Santa's Christmas Forest hangs in my main family room-

And of course, new this year is my Twelve Days of Christmas quilt!  This hangs in my formal living room, on the same wall as the Santa tree.  You can't tell from the photo, but this quilt is directly across from the Twelve Days tree.  It would be great to be able to have the tree and quilt together, but the Santa tree is too wide to move into my foyer, so the trees have to stay where they are.

Also in my family room are the fireplace and shelving unit.  I completely remove every bit of regular decor to make way for the Christmas stuff!  The Santa collection on the top two shelves of is so neat.  They're Santas of the 20th century, and each one represents a decade in his dress, as well as the toys in his bag.  For example, the Santa of the 1970's is wearing bell bottoms, a big butterfly collar, and platform boots.  He holds a disco ball, and and has an eight track tape and a yellow smiley face in his bag.  Each one is so detailed and unique.  This collection has been my dad's for years, and this year, he decided to go ahead and pass them to me.

And here's the other side of our fireplace, with the mantel and our childhood stockings (the stockings are centered on the fireplace, it's just that the photo is very slightly angled)-

I also love Christmas trees!  I have a couple of different Christmas forests in my house as well.  This one is on the dresser in my bedroom-

And this one is really special to me.  With the exception of one tree, all of these ceramic Christmas trees have been made by my grandmother, the biggest one way back in 1970.  I love this collection, and it makes me smile every time I walk into my kitchen.

Well, now you see what I've been busy working on for the past couple of weeks!  It is so much work to do it all, but it makes my heart happy for my whole house to be so festive.

And now, let's check out just a few highlights from last week!  This beauty is from Nancy at Grace and Peace Quilting-

This cozy quilt top is from Maggie at Making a Lather-

Myra at Busy Hands Quilts shared these cute Christmas projects-

And finally, Sew Preeti Quilts linked up this cheerful quilt-

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