Our Christmas Mantel

If you’re reading this than hopefully you are sitting down for a minute, away from the hustle and bustle of the season and enjoying a cup of hot chocolate or a glass of wine….. and taking a breather. Maybe you’re even sitting by your fireplace right now and enjoying the lights on your tree. If not feel free to join me at our house. We have a Gallery Wall above our fireplace that I did with our wedding family photos, so I pulled out the center ones and added a wreath and this rustic JOY sign I found. If you’re wondering about the nine stockings, our family is four and we have five furry family members so of course they have stockings too. Besides our two kids, we have two dogs, Roxie and Coco and three cats, Chynna, Oreo and Chloe. Santa brings everyone treats in our home. I love to hunt for vintage sweater knit stockings at thrift stores (you can find them for $1 or $2 too). Then I personalized them with scrabble tiles glued to ribbon. If you want to learn how there's a post on it. It’s an easy way to make them personal and you can pull the ribbon off and change whenever you like, new dog, new baby, new family member….lol. On the mantel are these pretty lighted Christmas Boxes. We LOVE our fireplace and use it a lot in the winter time like last night. It was so cold and we had been shopping and running around. I had my hubs light the fire complete with Duraflame log, a few pieces of wood from our Eucalyptus Tree (a branch had fallen right before we moved in and had our gardener cut it for us) and some pinecones from our trip to Northern Cal. When we had our fireplace inspected when we first bought our home, the inspector said the little boxes above were original to our 92 year old home and way back in the day, you could pull the wire and it would let heat into your home…just an interesting fact to share. Our living room leads into our Dining Room and you can see the fireplace from the dining room table too. It’s very warm and charming at night too. Here’s our Christmas Tree and if you want to take a tour of our home come on over. Thank you so much for stopping by and have a great day, Lisa