2016 Holiday House Tour of Content.

As some of you may remember, last year's Christmas decor-spectacular was brought to you by the lovely Monica Mangin of East Coast Creative and Lowe's.

We were the recipients of a Holiday Makeover, and Monica and her team came to Content. in October (just days after Halloween) and decked our halls with a ton of Christmas cheer. You can check out Monica's recap of the Makeover here.

Well, this year, it's up to me. Thankfully, all the decor used in the Makeover was ours to keep for years to come. The Makeover was just in the Great Room, so I wanted to spread the cheer out a bit throughout the house and add my own spin.

Content. has 10 fireplaces. One day I hope to decorate them all completely different, with their own theme, but 2016 was not that year...

This year, our theme was "don't spend any money + use what you have". We added greens and garland to accent the mantels, and I reused my favorite mix-and-match brass candle sticks with simple white candle sticks.

My favorite Makeover keepsake, these blackboard Nutcrackers!

The Great Room is a pretty large space, so we used both of the artificial Christmas trees again, which are prelite and a dream to put up and take down.

I'm not sentimental about having a real tree. I'm pretty sure I'm allergic to them, in fact, and with all the foot traffic Content. sees, let things to clean up (ie needles) is preferred. 

We did quite a bit of personalization this year, adding this cherished ornament to the tree which was a gift to us from our friend Lin.

Lin is not only super thoughtful, she's also REALLY creative. For a whole year, she held onto this stamp which she received and saved from our wedding invitations and collected these tiny pine cones from the camp where we were married.

She made this beautiful ornament and it was a house warming gift when we moved into Content. and we couldn't love it more.

A little holiday cheer was added to Guest Room 1. The large green accent wall was begging for some holiday inspiration.

What, doesn't every room need a full sized toboggan? I certainly think so...

Never one to eliminate chairs from a room (I love guests!) I simply moved these loungers, displaced by the tree, closer to the front door. Luckily, we have two front doors, so blocking one wasn't a problem at all.

This little spot is now the perfect nook for reading Twas the Night Before Christmas.

We spend a lot of time in the kitchen, so I wanted the holiday decor to be minimalist. These simple window wreaths and ribbon are subtle but beautiful and just the right amount of holiday without being over the top.

The dining room got some handmade love. The wreath on this fireplace was made by me during a second annual wreath making day with my favorite girlfriends.

My girl Veronica captured this pic and said it best:

Tradition. It's so important to me, and thankfully to my closest friends as well. Last weekend, my ladies and I got together for wreath making and bubble drinking. We applauded (and teased) each other's evergreen building skills (and bow tying skills!) while discussing very important topics (nap schedules, baby bumps and who's pouring more prosecco) I don't know what I'd do without these friendships + the laughs that come with them. 👭

A photo posted by Veronica | Wedding + Lifestyle (@veronicalolaphoto) on Dec 3, 2016 at 8:50am PST

Here's my attempt at displaying all of the beautiful Christmas cards we receive each year. I created this "Christmas Past and Present" banner using a free printable I found online.

I picked a few cards from Christmas past to display along with the new cards we received this year.

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas! From Content. we hope your season is Merry + Bright!