Home For The Holidays Travel Tree

Welcome to our Christmas Holiday Home Tour this year!

We wish you all a Merry Christmas season and are so glad that you can join us for the our Christmas Holiday Home Tour this year. You may notice that this years home tour might look a little different than it has in years past. Today I have joined up with some amazing bloggers to share some fantastic holiday inspiration with the Home for Christmas Tour with you all this season, organized by the super talented Leigh, at Little by Little Home.  If you have just join me from Michelle at Our Crafty Mom and her fabulous holiday home tour, welcome we are delighted to have you here to share in the decorating of our Home For The Holidays Travel Tree.

This year we adopted a new kitten so our inside decor will be reflective of having a 5-month-old kitten on the loose, so all the ornaments are shatterproof. However, this is only for one year, for me it is more important to keep my sentimental keepsakes safe and show you how to do pretty in a non-breakable fashion this year. I will say we did actually give her a cat toy tree of her own; which gets destroyed on a daily basis, but has surprisingly kept her out of the others a bit.

My front door wreath has the exact same bow as last year, since I mentioned I have been unable to make bows this year. However, I did plug in new rustic plaid ribbon loops to make it appear different. I also removed the red glitter ornaments that had faded from last year (seen here) and added in pine cones I spray painted white. Then I added in the sweet custom-made wooden reindeer from my friend over at Wooden Sugar.

Designer Tip: You do not have to reinvent the wheel every year, or be suck in a rut with the same old, same old decor either. Just a few minor changes and change outs can create all new looking decor from year to year, saving you a bunch money but keeping your decor from looking stagnant.

Every year we fill our great room with a large 12 foot tree filled with all of our travel ornaments from places we have been, memories we have shared. This year more than any other year it was so important to see how lucky we have been to have traveled to all these amazing places while we were able too. Since our house theme this year is Christmas carols, this tree is aptly themed Home For The Holidays Travel Tree.Each little ornament symbolizes a place, a memory, a journey we took together and we are so grateful to be able to fill our 12 foot tree completely with all of these memories. Especially with the state of the world today, not knowing when travel will really be safe again or when other countries will even open up their borders to allow tourist. This majestic tree is always at the center of our holiday home and while the color theme may change from year to year, the ornaments and sentiment will always remain the same.As you take a closer look at a few of  our trinkets from some of our travels you may be able to easily spy St. Paul’s Cathedral, Aqueducts of Segovia, 2008 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, Tavern on The Green, The Liberty Bell, Kīlauea National Park and Stonehenge. While there are many more, those are just a few in this shot that are pretty easy to see. We made it a tradition to buy a Christmas ornament at every travel location we have ever gone to over the last 23 years, which has filled this amazing tree. Plus they are so easy to find, it seems like it is a very common practice to have holiday ornaments at gift stores when sightseeing. Plus it is a nice way to reminisce and recall your trip years later. One rule of thumb my husband and I had when we married was to not travel to the same place twice. I know a lot of people that have timeshares or vacation homes and always go to the same place on vacation and really like the familiarity of that; but for us there’s was a whole big world we wanted to see. So why not go to a different place each time and experience something new and different instead of the same old, same old?As I mentioned above, while the ornaments stay the same with new additions each year from our travels I do change up the color scheme to go with a house theme. This year I used a pretty combination of sheer rose gold ribbon and burlap netting to weave into the the tree. I followed the color story with adding over 500 shatterproof ornaments in shades of gold and champagne.I carried the same ornaments and rose gold ribbon to the fireplace mantle and added them into the garland along with all white twinkle lights to match the tree. While I do mix up the type of lighting I put on this tree from year to year, in the color story I felt like sticking to a traditional warm white twinkle light was the best choice.Our stockings and matching faux fur tree skirt located inside the wicker tree ring have a very rustic feel this year to play off our new cow hide chairs that flank the fireplace. I also ordered a few cowhide pillows and antelope pillows as well to continue the rustic wilderness feel in this space. You can also see that we have a couple of basic mixed green wreaths hanging inside of our tobacco baskets, I did decide not to add any more additional ribbon to those, I liked keeping them a solid green.
I also added a few rustic Staghorn Ferns into my farmhouse style dough bowl, just drop in a few glittery holiday ornaments and voila instant holiday centerpiece. This is located on our accent table which normally sits in the window, where the tree is now. Since I get asked all the time where I relocate my furniture during the holidays, this table is behind the sofa, as a breakfast nook with the bench which faces the kitchen.  Over in the kitchen we added Ms. Betty Crocker, inspired from my easy bake oven days. Did you guys have one of those? My poor father had to eat all of my creations; can you say diabetus? So, I ordered this super cute little polka dot apron and decorated her with painted wooden spoons that I added family recipes and my mom’s vintage cookie cutters from the  60’ss and 70’s, see the full Keepsake Ornament DIY tutorial here. I think she is super cute, and turned out great.As you head upstair into our Woodland Guest Suite, we have our Radio Flyer Sleigh inspired tree. Adorned with large rustic pine cones, red winterberries, and rusty brown sleigh bells. This is our flocked tree, which we decided to put in a closed off room this year since our newest addition likes to eat things, and the flock on these trees can be toxic. Again, a very simple tree topper with a ready-made chalkboard sign that matches the decor. Then for the tree skirt we used a small faux brown bear skin rug to invoke that woodland vibe.

Designer Tip: You can use unusual things to create unexpected designs for your trees, it does not always have to be Christmas decor, especially if decor is hard to come by, just think outside of the box.

You may remember that I used these very same pillows and rug for my Woodland Fox Hollow Table back in the fall. Now they are getting a second life in the woodland guest room with this great wintery room design, which will last well into next year.In the twin guest room, I kept with an all green theme for the tree. I added in brown ornaments and feathers so it had a camo style feel, which makes sense for this color story which was inspired by the ever popular G.I. Joe action figures. While the tree itself is not particularly masculine, or militant, it still has a strong color pallet with a nod toward hiding in the wildness. To be honest I almost took little plastic army men and added hooks to them and put them on this tree, which I thought would have been really fun, like out of Home Alone, but my hubby did not want me to “crap up” my pretty tree just for him. I was even going to spray paint some gold or bronze too, I really thought it would be cool, what you do you think? You can see more details on this tree at in my A Green Guest Room Christmas Tree post.Across the hall in our Master Bedroom I went with a shade of an icy blue themed tree, with ivory fur ribbon and blue icy mesh. During the day this tree reminds me of Elsa from Frozen when I keep the white lights on, however it has the option to switch up the lighting option.When we switch over to the primary-colored LED lights this tree makes me think of my old childhood Lite Brite. Especially with the wooden peg picks I added into the tree that pull the tree box into the fold. I picked them up this year from Hobby Lobby, when they remind me a bit of wooden tinker toys, LOL, but I imagine they will be very useful in designs going forward too. I will say this tree was the first one up in our house, and has gotten the biggest workout from our little Zooey. It has been climbed and un decorated the trees several times, usually around 3 am. If you look closely in the picture below you can see one of her recent escape holes, which I decided to just picture, to prove my point.
Directly off of our bedroom is the sleeping porch, and we added a tree to it for the first time this year. This tree was inspired by the Snoopy Sno-Cone Machine, which was one of my favorite holiday presents. It was a red and white dog house that created cherry or fruit punch flavored sno cones with the crank of a handle.
This tree sort of had the feeling of shaved ice drizzled with cherry syrup. I did add a snowman hat to the top just as a decorative topper. This was actually a tabletop plant holder, but I just wired it into the tree as a topper instead. In fact, I probably could have filled the top with extra picks if I had any left, but it seems like I have used them all at this point.
I hope you have enjoyed my section of the Christmas Blog Hop, now I can not wait to go and visit all my friends listed below to see how they have decorated their homes for the holidays. Now to continue the loop, head on over to my super talented friend  Sara, at Twelve on Main to see her Inspirational Kitchen and Dining Room Holiday decor!

Recreated Designs / The Tattered Pew / The Little by Little Home

Our Crafty Mom / Jenron Designs / Twelve on Main / Noting Grace

Did you love all of these trees, want to see more of my holiday trees? You can see more at these great holiday tree posts:

Winter Wonderland Tree Decor

Vintage Cigar & Bourbon Library Tree

A Green Guest Room Christmas Tree