Our Phestive Philly Home!
Since moving day back in March we have constantly talked about how much fun it would be to do it up right for Christmas. It is the kind of historic home that seems to have been designed specifically for the holidays.
Living on a colonial cobblestone street meant that our goal could not be a glitzy all-white-everything winter glam like all of us are salivating over on Pinterest right now. Oh no, this had to be more Charles Dickens and less Khloe Kardashian.
More like this ^
Less like this ^ (but I still love!)
As per usual, when embarking on a rather simple plan such as decorating for the holidays, one of us decides to make the effort 1000x more complicated than necessary. It was the Saturday after Thanksgiving, as Nathan was putting the finishing touches on our tree when I decided that I was going to *make* stockings for us to hang above the fireplace. Mind you, I have no patterns and only a few hours of sewing experience to my name. For this project I used leftover fabric from the slip cover adventure and the downstairs ottoman and was sure to rush through a few Youtube Tutorials.
Although six hours later I somehow came out with items that do somewhat resemble stockings, I now know that this is actually a pretty intensive project requiring far more patience then I have. 80% of the way the struggling journey, Nathan had to talk me out of trashing every bit of tangled stitching and offered sweetly to instead to help me staple (?!) the last bits.
His enthusiasm helped me push through (without staples) and at least when we pull out these stockings several years from now we will have a good story/laugh!
As for our tree, we kept the color palate of ornaments pretty simple. Many of them are hand me downs from my parents (which I love). Nathan and I never even discussed spending any money on additional ones. That said and being only six months into marriage we are still building up our collection of “family” ornaments. We have a few quirky ones we have picked up in our travels plus a beautiful gift from Nathan’s parents.
A lot of our focus has been placed on creating a cozy colonial Christmas vibe in the living room but small holiday elements were not forgotten in the entrance way and kitchen.
On our dining room table a small tree features some of the shotgun shells I saved from our first “date” and my first Calvert, Mississippi Mistletoe Shoot!
By Sunday we were all set to host a few friends and family members for what ended up being “Cider with the Calverts” (meaning - we put cider and some spices in the crockpot and spiked it with Fireball before serving. Yum!)
Now the wrapping of gifts begins! I already fear how empty everything will feel once Jan 1st rolls around.
Home!
