I really like the Holiday season. I enjoy how festive people are as well as the general cheer that people share. I think it’s a lot of fun. Speaking of Holidays, while my name is spelled Hollie versus Holly, I still get plenty of bad Christmas joke. I enjoy integrating my name into every aspect of the Hollyday season…
Have a Holly Jolly Christmas.
Deck the Halls with Bells of…me.
Happy Hollydays (You’ll notice I changed my twitter name to be more festive)!
Anyways now that I have created some slightly terrible and embarrassing puns, I will actually focus on what the blog post was about.
While Tim and I lived together last year, this is the first year we truly felt decorated. Last year we picked out a tree, added a few lights and holiday themed things…this year we decided to create Holiday traditions.
Thanks to Sears I was given a 100 dollar gift card to buy decorations with. I had planned to buy Holiday lights anyways, so this was perfect. I like Holidays and themed events so our house gets decorated for everything…Christmas, Halloween…Thanksgiving.
Personally, I think a staple of decorating is icicle lights. We had outdoor icicle lights last year and I hope we have them every year.
With the giftcard we purchased about 50 dollars worth of icicle lights. Due to internet safety, I’m not going to post photos of my house. If you’re anything like me, you get frustrated when string lights go out. In the email SEARS sent us, they talked a lot about new DieHard LED lights and said we should try them out (so I used half my gift card on those!). The new DieHard LED holiday lights at Sears come with a 5 year warranty, stay cool to the touch and never flicker. If one light goes out, the others stay lit.
Inside we got a real tree. Both of us grew up with real trees and we liked them.
We also got a couple of nice wreaths to add to our house.
We already have a mini fake tree that I somehow accumulated in college (lord knows where…). It has followed me around and we put in the window. We added a lot of our favorite personal ornaments onto the tree. Everyone in my immediate family knows how much I like penguins so each year I get a new penguin ornament.
We wanted our real Christmas tree to be fancy. We bought some blue glass balls (TWSS) and kept it simple.
If all else fails for Christmas, just decorate with your cat.
Enough about me, here are some random fun Hollyday facts that Sears sent me to share:
- 1 in 4 Americans will begin to deck the halls one month before the holiday. (I normally would a week before but I needed to write this post).
- 41 percent of Americans defined their signature design as “classic,” followed by “colorful” (37 percent) and “vintage” (12 percent). (I define mine as LOLZ)
- More than half (58 percent) of participants felt the most essential decoration for the holidays was the Christmas tree.
- Nearly 25 percent of Americans choose decorating as their favorite holiday activity, with listening to Christmas music and shopping as other favorites. (LOLZ chooses eating holiday cookies)
While I don’t have a giveaway Sears does. Sears is hosting a contest where you can win a giftcard (to use at Sears or one of their sister stores). Upload a photo of your house decorated for the Holidays to enter and you can enter every day.
o Between 11/17-12/26, visit here and answer the poll questions. Then upload a photo of your home decked out for the holidays for a chance to win Shop Your Way points
- 60 people will instantly win $50 in Shop Your Way points—you can enter daily
- 1 grand prize winner will win 1 million Shop Your Way points (which is redeemable as a giant giftcard!)
I think this might be my longest post yet!
Questions for you:
How do you decorate your house for the Holidays?
As a Jewish girl, Christmas decorating is something I used to wish I could do as a kid! Although I’m (mostly) over it now, we do decorate a little bit for Hanukkah and Christmas for the kids’ sake and they love it!
I do zero holiday decorating. Actually, zero decorating at all unless you count my row of colorful Hokas in my bedroom. (I do count that, it’s pretty).
Are they green and red?
Purple and orange which is the same I think.
I did ZERO holiday decorating until Eric moved in. Now our house is basically a Christmas wonderland, hahaha yikes! I actually really enjoy it but it’s probably not something I’d do on my own.
We have always enjoyed decorating, and in this house have a big formal room as well as a family room so we can do something in both as well as some lights outside (nothing over-the-top). We have a Dept 56 Dicken’s Village set in our front bay window … but the cat likes to lay on top of it 🙂
We always had a real tree until the allergies from my wife and younger son simply wouldn’t allow it anymore. As soon as we switched to a fake tree those problems went away!
In our new house we have a “formal” room that is perfect for the tree.
I love Christmas! I have what I call a “pretty tree” – where all the ornaments are blue and silver and I LOVE it. I do a little decorating in the rest of the house, but not very much. My tree is the center of attention 🙂 I have to use a fake tree because of all the allergies I have to the real trees.
Awe allergies. You’ll have to text a photo of your tree! I can imagine how lovely it is!
I love decorating, but nothing too huge. I strung up lights around the living room and bedroom and we put up our tree, but that’s about it.
I really wish I could have a real tree, but my building doesn’t allow them so I’m stuck with a fake one and a scented candle. Womp, womp. But that’s okay — as long as I can toss lights on it and bask in it’s warm glow, I’m a happy camper 😀
I have a teeny apartment so I keep it simple with a few bows, candles and wall decals. I haven’t gotten lights because 1.) I forgot to buy them and 2.) I am not home enough to fully appreciate them. Your Potsdam penguin is cute! Go Bears
I love the icicle lights! This is the first year I’ve used them. I love how they are cool to the touch and I haven’t unplugged them yet (in over 2 weeks)!