Holiday Home Tour: Our Christmas Tree & Fireplace/Mantle

Happy Friday, y'all! Let me tell you that I am so glad to be home for a couple weeks. Life is slower and although I have this nagging feeling in my head that I'm missing something (thanks, grad school), I'm not, and it's great. 
Anyway, one of my favorite things about Christmas and the holidays is decorating and all the decor that we use. We've had many of our decorations since I was little, and some are even from when my parents were first married. Our Christmas collections have grown over the years to include some of my favorite ornaments and decorations.

So today, I'm taking y'all on a holiday home tour to show off my family's Christmas decor! Let's start with the main attraction, our tree. We've had an artificial tree for as long as I can remember. It just works better for us. But we still make it look pretty beautiful, if I do say so myself. I'll write more on the real/fake contention later this month. 

                            

We got this tree a few years after moving to Pennsylvania. It's the first tree with white lights we've ever had; I was always a fan of the colored lights when I was younger. But I really love how our ornaments really sparkle against the white lights now. Hanging the ornaments is one of my favorite parts of decorating, and I'm sad I've missed it the last few years being away at school. I'll have a post on my favorite ornaments next week!

Now on to the fireplace and mantle. We've got four stockings: Mom, me, Dad, and the kitty (left to right). We got the kitty's stocking way back when I was in elementary school for the cat we had at that time, and we've just kept it for all of our cats. We like to include our pets on Christmas morning, so Bows will get a little surprise in her stocking to play with, too. 
Speaking of the kitty...she wanted to get in on my pictures, too. 

Next week, I'll share some of my favorite Christmas tree ornaments, and show y'all some of our other decorations. I love sharing the holiday spirit with my readers!