Festive Christmas kitchen decor

It’s Christmastime at the Woodwards, and I am loving all the festive touches in our kitchen and home. Any excuse to add more red to my home is okay by me.

If you have been around here any length of time, you know that I am a little bit Christmas obsessed. And if you haven’t been here, welcome to the nut house. (You can check out all of our past holiday decor here.) It has nothing to do with the blog. I just love to decorate all the nooks and crannies for Christmas. Every single little touch makes me smile.

I used to love to decorate our house with my mom growing up.

She was wonderful about making our home special for the holidays and I have so many great memories of neighborhood caroling and Christmas gift opening. I remember decorating the top of our piano with our village – adding snow and a mirror for an ice skating pond. And of course, there was always a fresh tree. (And in case you can’t see it properly, I’m wearing acid wash overalls in this picture, which is proof I’ve always been awesome.)

Fast forward to my final year of college when I was sharing a duplex with two friends. It was the fist year we really had space of my own to decorate, and we made the most of it. We hit discount stores for and decked our halls. We even hosted a holiday party and gift exchange. My college roomie sent me this photo today (thank you, Ali), and it brought back so many good memories.

Little did I know that 14 years later, I’d still be enjoying decorating our home for Christmas. Life looks a lot different – but a love for Christmas is forever, am I right?

Where was I?

Okay, right … Christmas in the kitchen. Because the kitchen is the hub of our home, I like to keep it festive but not cluttered. We use the counters all day, every day, so they have to be workable. And there has to be room to stack all the Amazon boxes that are arriving daily – sorry, not sorry. But there are plenty of other ways to bring some sentimental holiday touches besides cluttering all the countertops.

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First up, our activity advent. I was inspired to convert my mug rack into an advent by my friend Jessica at the Martin Nest, who created an advent with black envelopes (so chic). She even shared her daily kindness inserts on the post, so it’s not too late if you are looking for advent ideas.

For our family’s version, I took down all the mugs on my mug rack and replaced them with small drawstring bags I picked up on Amazon. I basically waited until late last week to think about it and these were way easier to buy than DIY.

The bags are a little smaller than I envisioned, but also fit perfectly on the rack. I stuck some dum dum suckers inside and some holiday activities we’ll be doing on certain days.

The cow hoop art was a gift from my friend Kellie when we lived in the barn.

On the other side of the kitchen, I gussied up the door and the open shelving with festive touches.

The bucket stays on this door throughout the year and just gets a seasonal makeover. Isn’t the truck string art great?

Next up, the open shelves. I love tweaking these shelves all year, and at Christmas, they got an extra dose of cheer.

I left some of my Rae Dunn collection and then added in some holiday Rae Dunn and Fiesta lights dishes. The Fiesta lights dishes were available exclusively at the Younkers family of stores for years before they went out of business. My parents got them for me almost 10 years ago as a gift and I love them as much today as I did then. Now they can be purchased at Bed Bath and Beyond and Macy’s.

I’m so happy they are still available because they are my favorites. And while finding that link for you, I also just noticed that they have ACTUAL BULB SHAPED PLATES that match the table settings and I’m afraid that Santa will need to add those to my list. Please and thank you.

Jesus take the wheel. I can’t be trusted when looking at holiday dishes.

I can’t help but share my new little fused glass tree with you. My friends and I took a glass class last month and this was my final product. It’s like a mosaic on a sheet of glass. Adorbs.

And below the open shelves, I added this string of lights that I purchased from Letter2Word a few years ago. I had a grateful sign hung for fall, and I Just flipped the sign to have a solid white background.

Another little addition to this wall is some built in cabinet lighting. My dad added lighting to his cabinets this month and I mentioned I’d love to have lights on this wall. Lucky me, he showed up with all the supplies and made it happen. You can see the glow above the fruit bowl above.

It’s hard to get good photos of the lighting, but it looks awesome and makes all my dishes pop. Plus, a little glow at night is so nice in the kitchen.

 

Do you want to see more holiday kitchen ideas?

A holiday ready kitchen	Kitchen decor for cookie week
Our Christmas village	Holiday kitchen and dining room

 

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