Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Holiday Tour

Welcome to northern Virginia and the 2011 Holiday House Tour hosted by Jen of Jen on the Edge. The idea is to give the reader an idea of how we decorate for the Holidays.

We decorate pretty basically. We have a tree in the living room.



We did go to LED lights this year as I was getting pretty tired of replacing burned out bulbs and/or strings of lights. I have to say the new lights can be a bit bright. Actually bright may be an under statement. You almost need sunglasses to look at it. We do have a voice activated gizmo that allows us to turn the lights on and off without having to crawl behind the tree to pull out the plus to turn it off and that same gizmo allows us to dim the lights, which actually looks better. That same gizmo also provides hours of fun for Daughter#2 when she visits. She'll lay out on the couch and talk to the tree and turn in on and off and on and off... You get the idea.

We also decorate the family room. Lights on the mantle, stockings hung by the chimney with care...including ones for each of our four dogs. There is also a lighted wreath. The wreath is a fairly new addition.



Finally there are decorations outside to help make the neighborhood festive. We go for all white lights to cover the bushes. We also have two wreaths on the front door.



That's pretty much the extent of our holiday decorating. I can't say that we're very crafty folks so everything comes from the store except a few handmade ornaments on the tree - holdovers from when the kids made them way back in elementary school.

I hope you enjoyed this brief tour of our house. Things have been a bit hectic this December what with Daughter#2 graduating from the University of Florida with a Masters degree and over the same weekend having my Dad pass away. We burying him later this week.

From northern Virginia (or NoVA as we say in these parts), here's hoping you and yours have a very Merry Christmas and wishing you all the best for the coming New Year!

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm laughing imagining those tree lights going on and off--like the strip in Vegas, right?
Happy Christmas!

Soccer Mom said...

I have some LED lights outside and I love them!! I haven't brought them inside yet but I think I just might next year :)

smalltownme said...

Voice activated lights! What will they think of next. It looks great!

bdaiss said...

Voice activated lights? Oh the fun! Crafty or not, I love your decorations. So fun and colorful. (I am also very envious of your gorgeous fireplace!) Thanks for sharing.

Molly said...

Great looking tree!

Jen said...

Oh I want a voice activated tree!

Andrea said...

LED and voice activated! How fun and very festive!

Jen on the Edge said...

I love LED lights and not having to replace the bulbs. I've never heard of voice-activated lights -- I have delegated tree watering and lights-turning-on to my daughters, who are younger and more limber than I am.

Thank you for sharing your decorations with us.

Walker said...

I was so happy to have bought a pre-lit treee until someone pointed out that when the lights wear out you have to buy a new tree! I will go with the LEDs with the voice activated thing - sounds cool!

jen_alluisi said...

Disco tree!! How awesome - love it!

Kym said...

We have a pre-lit tree that has lights that have burned out, we just add a string where the burned out lights are. No one has ever noticed.