Since I just finished building a fake fireplace a few weeks ago, this is the first year I’ve had a mantel to decorate for Christmas. You better believe I was going to take advantage of it!
Having never really gone to town decorating a mantel for Christmas before, I didn’t quite know how I was going to decorate it, but with some inspiration from Pinterest, I soon figured it out. The branches are all left over from when we trimmed the base of our Christmas tree to make it fit in the stand, and I rummaged my house for everything else. I kept it pretty simple, just adding pinecones, string lights, antlers, and some candles.

I actually started with a different set of plug-in Christmas lights. I liked them, but wanted to try some battery-operated string lights that would be more subtle. 

So I took the whole shebang down and started over. On the second go-round I added this mini letterboard:
Sidenote: I just found out that an adult American human I know has never seen Home Alone! If you live in another country where it wasn’t THE holiday kids movie it makes sense, but honestly I didn’t even know that it was possible to grow up in the US without having seen it at least once. But if you google “Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal,” you’ll find out that that quote is from a fake movie series within Home Alone and Home Alone 2. So now I feel ridiculous for not having realized that those movies weren’t real. Please tell me I’m not the only one who thought they they were real old movies that Kevin was watching.

Ok, back to the Christmas mantel.

My original intention was to hang stockings from those holders that are a simple weighted base with a hook, preferably in white. But when I went to buy some at Target like a week or two ago, they were completely out in stores and online, and I couldn’t find simple ones that I liked anywhere else. So I wracked my brain (pun intended), and came up with the idea to use antler sheds as stocking hooks. Maybe next year I’ll get real hooks, but I actually really like the rustic vibe that the antlers add, so I’ll probably put them up even if I’m not hanging stockings from them.

Also, both Steven and I have Santa stockings with our names on them that our grandmas knit. The grandmas who knit them are both gone now, but it’s nice to know that we’ll always have the stockings to remind of us of them every Christmas.

So that’s my holiday mantel decorating for this year. These pictures are making me desperately want to repaint the yellow-ish walls that I complain about every time they appear here, so maybe that will be my first house project of 2018.

Merry Christmas!