It's Beginning To Look A Little Like Christmas

Not a LOT like Christmas, but at least a little!

Some of the other decorated houses out in blog-land put mine to shame, but I wanted to share anyway. If anything, I can look back on this post next year and be happy about my progress. I've already informed my husband that next year, along with getting our first tree, we will be spending at least $500 on decorations (I would hit up the after Christmas sales this year for like 70% off of that $500, but then we'd have to deal with the pain of moving all the boxes of ornaments and possibly breaking some before they reach our new house, so my hubs said he's OK with paying more next year to avoid all of that).

Our stockings that I made, hung on our downstairs mantle, along with the paper snowflake luminaries.

Under the mantle are the mostly-for-looks "presents." AKA, a couple of gifts, mixed in with empty gift bags, for the illusion of festivity. Am I the only one that does this? It just looked too sad without more gift bags though, since I let my husband open his gifts early, and my gift from him isn't tangible.

And the whole fireplace set up.

Upstairs, on our entertainment center, we have lights on our TV, and garland and more luminary candles in front of the TV.

The front of our house. Since a 2 story ladder isn't something we own (and is on the very long list of things we don't want to buy until we own a home), I just taped lights to the inside of the windows on the second story of our house. It gets the job done, without having to climb up on a ladder, and I've got them all set up on light timers, so I don't have to go from room to room, plugging them in every night.

I really do love our front door (and the felt wreath I made). The detail around it is so pretty, and I hope we can do something similar once we buy a house. Plus, it makes it easy to line the door with lights!

Also, guess what I spotted when I opened the door to go outside and snap these pictures? Two deer on our front lawn! It's not the best picture, since I had to use the flash, and they were moving, but still. Hooray deer! :)

Have you got all of your holiday decorations up already? Is anyone planning on hitting up the after Christmas sales to stock up on decorations for next year?