"Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree!"

I'm just going to go out on record and say that one of my least favorite things to do, during the holidays, is.... decorate the Christmas tree. I just can't seem to make it fun. Kirklands and Pier1's trees ruin it for me. I can't compete. Haha. My living room tree has always been decorated to color coordinate with my living room.  For 5 years, I had cheetah prints, loads of gold and brown, with hints of green. My theme was ALL ABOUT the reason we celebrate CHRISTmas... Jesus. I had the names of Jesus ornaments and many other nativity, angel wings, and other flashy ornaments hanging. I was seriously considering retiring that tree, after last year.  I desired a more modern and/or unique looking tree. 

I took a stab and entered our tree into "Michael's Dream Tree Challenge", after it was fully decorated. I was on cloud 9 when I received a direct message from Michael's Stores telling me, "Surprise, you won our dream tree challenge!"  NO WAY!!!!! I received a $150.00 gift card to their store and a GORGEOUS 7.5 foot, prelit, jasper cashmere, dream tree.  I guess I didn't have to contemplate whether or not to redesign my Christmas tree the following year.  

Fast forward 365 days later (yes, I held on to a gift card for ONE FULL YEAR) and I had the FUN, but overwhelming task of starting with a BLANK canvas tree.  I looked EVERYWHERE.  Even Michael's Stores.  NOTHING was really tickling my fancy, BUT we had a NEW living room (which I haven't shared yet), so I knew what I wanted my color scheme to be.. somewhat. When I was ran out of stores to scope, I decided to check Macy's.  I thought, "They always have pretty trees!" AND BAM... I saved the best for last... they had several trees that screamed, "Kristin... over hear!" and "BUY US!" The ornaments ranged from $9.00 to $22.00 each and I about croaked.  In order to do this tree RIGHT, I needed like 4,000 ornaments.  LOL! It was my "lucky" day.  The ornaments were not only 60% off, but they were giving away Macy's cash.  So, I went to town.  Not all of the ornaments in the collage below came from Macy's, but as you can see my theme was anything white, black, pewter grey, silver, oasis teal/peacock teal, furry, reindeer related, sweater material, sparkles, and beads.  

As you previously saw in another post, I also added some Rae Dunn inspired ornaments with our names on them.  See that post here.

I'm am a little annoyed at myself that I am choosing to share my Christmas living room with you BEFORE sharing my regular living room with you, BUT truthfully, now that I have it undecorated... my living room reality is... it is EMPTY and needs filling/decorating help. So... here it was my living room BEFORE the tree was decorated.  As you can see, our living room is very monochromatic with small pops of color, textures, and patterns such as gold, flannel, pinstripe, fur, tweed, and geometric shapes.  

I had to purchase all new Christmas stockings to match and I LOVED incorporating black/white buffalo plaid into the interior too.

And then... I decorated the tree.  

 I fell in LOVE!!! Isn't it gorgeous?

The ornaments came from all of the following stores: Big Lots, Kirklands, Macy's, and Michael's Stores. My tree topper was NOT a traditional tree topper.  It was a GIANT rhinestone REINDEER from Big Lots.  I LOVE IT!

The black/white, buffalo plaid ribbon came from JoaAnn Fabrics, but this fabric was in such high demand this year and I could only locate (1) - 9' Foot roll ANYWHERE.  I pray next year, I can add a ton more ribbon.

Above: A few other beautiful touches were my pillows: buffalo plaid and "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." Below: A cute, buffalo plaid, layered Christmas tree.  I think I have ESP.  I really do.  I mean.... as soon as I decided on my patterns and color scheme, I FOUND EVERYTHING in those colors.  

My white reindeer with Santa hats on came from Lowes Home Improvement.  My light up "JOY" sign came from Five Below.  

I also LOVED this "Merry Christmas" sign from Kirkland's.  

OH DEER! Then, I spotted this Deer Painting at a woman's private craft show she was having at her home.  

 AND... HAD. TO. HAVE. IT!

It was the PERFECT touch!

I did add some velvet, deep oasis teal curtains from Ballard Designs in December.  We need a better curtain rod and they are NOT hung properly, in these photos, but we have the next several months to work on that.  LOL!

I could NOT be more pleased with the look of our living room.

All of the furniture, rug included, came from Furniture Land South.

NOW... every single room in our home is designed and decorated by them.  They have over 1.3 million square feet of furniture for you to choose from and create to make your own.

This room felt so cozy and so beautiful.  I just wanted to sit and stare at it all day, with coffee in hand, of course.

I for sure will be posting the BEFORE and AFTER living room eventually.  I will explain who bought our old furniture, what we kept and refurbished, and what we added to create this modern and updated LOOK!

This living room was so popular, it ended up on BollingWith5's 2017 MOST popular posts, not ONCE, but TWICE.