At Home with Ginny for Christmas

Happy Holidays from Casa Ginny! Like a lot of people, Christmas is my favourite time of year. There’s just something so magical about it with the smell of pine needles, twinkling fairy lights, and a cheeky afternoon sherry and a mince pie, what more could anyone want?! Maybe snow in LA… yes please. I know, I know,  I really am living in a ‘Love Actually’ dream world but it’s also my Birthday month so who can blame me, right? (22nd in case anyone wants to send me a card).  This year, Emily was like ‘why don’t you deck out your house and shoot it for the blog in the style of classic, sophisticated, trad?’ Obviously, I jumped at the chance.

Decorating the tree is a THING in our house. Since moving across the pond, we tend to go and get our tree the day after Thanksgiving and that way we prolong the enjoyment. Unlike the last few years, we went with a Nordmann Fir tree as opposed to the Noble Fir. The reason being that the branches are more spread apart and that way your baubles don’t end up resting on the branches below (which is a big no, no for me). I also think it’s more similar to trees I’ve had back home before.

There’s something in me that can’t do anything other than the traditional red, gold, green.  I’ve had the red fluffy baubles since my 21st birthday. My parents were away visiting my Aunt in Australia at the time, so I invited some girlfriends over for a dinner party. I spent the whole day dressing the tree and cooking… by myself… like the crazy Capricorn I am. It was actually the most fun day ever.

We forced the tree into the basket to hide the water holder thingy and then set it all on top of that fur tree skirt.

I wanted to keep the decor feeling more everyday than Santa’s grotto, so I just added a few more festive-feeling accessories here and there. This garland (which I snagged from Target last year) adds a cute touch over the art. I am in love with these little wooden houses which have the LED lights inside. They definitely feel more “holiday”, but I can see these sticking around my shelves even into the new year. And you can’t go wrong with adding some wintery feeling greenery like this baby blue eucalyptus which smells divine.

I brought in some creamier feeling tones and different textures with the pillows and fur throw blanket. I’ll admit I did return that fur blanket and swapped it for the dark grey version. That thing screamed Bubba & Theo (my pooches) and there’s no way I could do cream on a permanent basis because of them. And, as predicted, they love the grey one, they won’t get off the darn thing! I popped some gold paper wrapped chocolates in the advent calendar which have already been destroyed, sorry Santa. Sara made a cute GIF of this set up which you can see later in the post.

We don’t normally keep these blue chairs here since it can start to feel a little cramped with the reading nook but they actually look pretty cosy in this pic. I would consider keeping them here but then I’m faced with finding something else for the window wall. Let me know if anyone has any fun ideas?!

I changed up one or two things on each shelf to make it feel more festive like the cute bottle brush Christmas trees. You might have seen from my living room reveal that I love a ceramic bell so I just had to add this gold one to the collection.

And there’s me and one of those said puppies Mr Theo. Look how much fun he’s not having in this photo 🙂 I got the garlands from one of my all time favourite stores in LA, Rolling Greens Nursery which is dangerously two blocks from my house. They do the best faux flowers, branches and garland that look perfectly realistic. I’m going to have a hard time taking that down this year, I love how it frames out the archway. If you’re wondering how I installed it, I used white cup hooks and screwed them into the wall. So that’ll be a hoot patching those in the new year.

Again, just swapped out a few of my everyday pieces for some holiday swag and added some pine cones which I hoard away for this time of year. This is definitely a mince pie and sherry chair, or champagne, or whiskey or even tea, whatever tickles your fancy.

See, more pine cones! We styled this out for a cute GIF which will be up on social in the next few days. The stockings were new to the house this year. I love them simply because they’re blue and work with the rest of the room but also work with the red theme… I mean, of course red, white and blue work well together. I draped the log garland to give it that extra festive flair and added faux red berries again from Rolling Greens. This just brings that pop of colour to this part of the room. And more houses, I absolutely adore these and bought them as soon as they were on the shelves at the beginning of November. These are for sure staying put for a long while.

Since the two rooms are connected I dressed up the dining room a bit too. Target had these trees that come in different finishes and sizes so you could either mix and match like I did or keep them in the same family. I kinda like that they are all different but tonally they work well together.

For the centrepiece, I used this gold wreath candle holder with simple white candles and had the largest tree sat in the centre of the ring.

I spruced up my secretary-come-bar with well… a mini spruce tree and my new favourite candle from Cocolux Australia which is all natural and uses coconut wax and most importantly makes my house smell wonderful. Eye spy with my little eye those gold rimmed glasses (which, I’m going to let you in on a secret here, these are from World Market for $24 (set of 4) but Anthro sells something super similar for 3 times the price). Run and buy them all whilst you can! I have the champagne flutes, too.

I umm’d and ahh’d about whether to do the whole bar cart situation because frankly aren’t we over them yet?? But these next few shots might actually be my favourite of the bunch, so – lesson learned, guys – it’s always a good idea to do a bar cart, if not just for the alcohol alone! Since having this there, I have decanted several bottles of red wine to enjoy in my reading nook by my non-working fireplace (said with the poshest of English accents). Sadly I’m not joking, I have decanted wine but it actually feels very grown up so long may it continue. I hung more of the metallic painted edge wood log garland to the window frame, because when else are you really going to do that?!

I mixed up the metals here with both brass and copper which I think works well because the copper feels like an extension of the liquor. Using different shaped decanters adds more depth and height. The bar tools add a fun element and the tall vase with wintery silver dollar eucalyptus helps to soften that corner. And more pine cones!

Pretty liquor bottles don’t have to be hidden away (especially if they have a cute bottle topper). I brought in a marble tray to vary the surfaces and added these cute copper shot glasses (I’m too old for shots by the way) and a bowl of lemons and limes. You can see those World Market glasses at the back too!

So there you go, Christmas decorating alla Ginster. We didn’t end up pulling together a ‘get the look for this’ since I’ll be doing a holiday gift guide later today. So, if you like my style be sure to come back for that. I will say that a lot of the holiday decor was sourced at Target. Don’t worry, I wasn’t forced into doing it, I just really really like a lot of what they have going on in there this year.

And here’s a little holiday how-to for those of you who want to add a little refined cheer to your living room:

Happy Holidays xXx

For more of Ginny’s Makeover Takeover: Christmas Bedroom | Dining Room | Living Room