Christmas Dining Room 2012

First off, I have to say a humungous thank you for all your lovely comments about the Christmas Family Room. You all are so very sweet and I’m so happy you love it as much as I do!
Now onto the Dining Room!

This is our first Christmas with the light and bright makeover, so I had to sorta start over with the decor. And I had a lot of fun doing it;)
Hot Cocoa bar anyone?

This was kind of a spur of the moment idea. It was the day after Thanksgiving, aka Christmas Decorating Central over here. I was pulling stuff out of storage, running outside to spray paint things that needed a freshened up look, and digging in my stash upon stash of yard sale goodies, etc. It was a flippin’ show, I tell ya. Should’ve taken a picture of that hot mess for you!
I knew I wanted to have my little snowflake tree where my Thankful tree was…

…but didn’t know what large items I had that would balance out the height on the other side of the buffet table. I found these large jars in storage, I think I picked up at a yard sale? The wheels started moving…starlight mints…marshmallows…hot cocoa…YES!

So I added my white mugs, threw some hot cocoa packets in a gravy boat (?!! I know, but I wanted it done so I used what I had;), threw some candy canes in a blue mason jar, and there it was. Our first hot cocoa bar. Love that idea! Then once we had our Girls Night when we made our signs, I knew just where I was going to put mine…Baby, it’s Cold Outside – kinda perfect, right?!

I also picked up some of these dollar felt snowflakes from Target, and hung them on a piece of red yarn as a banner…

And from the mirror, I hung my berry W that I made last year at one of our Girls Nights…

You can see that post here.

We’ve been having fun with this set-up, especially my 6 year old. It’s such a special treat when I tell her she can have a cup – she goes over, takes a mug, a packet, and while I’m heating up the milk, she picks her marshmallows – it’s really the cutest thing.

Now let me tell you about some other stuff we’ve got going on in here…
Oh, the Dollar Tree. I will sing its praises once again. Helped me out big time this year in the dining room. I grabbed a six pack of glittery snowflakes that I hung from the six rungs of my chandelier, along with a strand of berries from Target.

And they also sell these BIG snowflakes – I bought 3 of them, and hung them from red yarn on the top of the china cabinet. Again, added some berry garland and that was that.

Sensing a theme? 😉 I went all snowflake-Winter-Wonderland-y up in here this year. I let the aqua china cabinet determine that one. I thought all the white would be lovely with the blue.
I kept my mirror and glass vases as the centerpiece, but swapped out the popcorn kernels for salt, and wrapped some Dollar Tree ribbon around the base. Packed all the gourds and mini pumpkins away, and replaced them with berries.

Easy, cheap, and pretty, right?! Salt. Love the stuff. At 79 cents for a big ol’ thing of it, you can decorate for a song, people. I think I went through 2 of them, so set me back a whopping $1.58.

I also did a little Walmart shopping for the shelves…

Those plates are $2.98?! I thought they were beautiful, so I grabbed them about a month ago when I was there. The berries are from my neighbor’s bushes – he saw me spray painting outside and told me if I ever wanted to grab some for decorating, to feel free! Awesome, right?