The countdown to Christmas is on, and we are filling our days with all of our favorite Christmas activities and traditions. We’ve been baking cookies, looking at Christmas lights, listening to carolers sing downtown, and reading our favorite Christmas books!
My boys love books, and I love that! Which is why we books play an important role in one of our favorite family traditions! Today I’m excited to join with a fun group of bloggers to talk about creating Christmas traditions, and we’ve each teamed with At Home stores to give our traditions some stylish upgrades! At Home wants to help you make your holiday traditions extra special as well, so be sure to check out the giveaway at the end of the post!
Like many families, the Elf on the Shelf makes a visit to our house during the holidays, but our elf brings a load of gifts with him – Christmas books for our boys to unwrap and read each night before bed. In the past, all of the wrapped books have just been stacked on our entry table, but this year, our elf delivered them in a gorgeous acrylic trunk from At Home!
The open hallway area outside our boys’ bedrooms is a nice space, but largely under utilized. This year, I decided to to make it a more comfortable and cozy space where we could read our Christmas books as a family each night.
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| If you are wondering about the reflections on our railing, it’s because of the way we childproofed them. You can read all of the details in this post: How to Child-Proof Horizontal Railings |
Our elf brings us the same books year after year {with a few new ones mixed in here and there as they outgrow others}, but seeing them all of the books wrapped up inside that amazing acrylic trunk makes them feel extra special! And since we always cuddle up together to read the books, I also picked up a new blanket and a couple of festive pillows from At Home to make this space perfectly cozy,
Each night before bed, they boys get to mark a day off of our Christmas countdown calendar on the chalkboard wall in our kitchen.
Then we head upstairs and they get to search through the trunk of books to find the one with the matching number. In the back corner of the trunk, I filled a tall glass vase from At Home with Christmas bows, and the pretty wrapping paper was another At Home find! This vase takes up the perfect amount of space to keep all the books upright, plus it just looks darn pretty!
It was love at first sight when I spotted that striped blanket at At Home! I am always drawn to bold stripes, and I really liked the detail of the different styles of crocheted stitches, from ribbed and cable knit to diamonds. Nonetheless, I initially thought the gold color in the blanket wouldn’t match any of my Christmas decor, so I reluctantly passed it by. Fortunately, a few minutes later I spotted that cute Happy Holidays pillow embroidered in gray, pink, and gold, and I knew it was meant to be! I added super soft and furry white pillow to the mix, and combined them on the black faux-snake skin chair that we already had in the upstairs hall.
My older son is just learning to read, and he loves reading books to his little brother. It melts my heart to see them cuddled up together under that blanket!
Of course, now the rest of the hallway needed a few pink and gold touches to tie the space together!
I filled my lamp base with some gold ornaments and added a collection of Christmas trees to my black and white striped cabinet. I think I might need some sort of intervention, because I can’t stop adding groups of Christmas trees to every flat surface in the house!
Sharing Christmas books with my boys each night before bed is one of my absolute favorite Christmas traditions because it fosters their love of reading and allows us to spend quality time together!
Looking for some inspiration for new holiday traditions? Here are some fabulous ideas to consider! We would also love to hear about your traditions…share them with us on Instagram by using #MyReason!
Blue i Style {you are here}
Be sure to enter the giveaway for a chance to win a $100 gift card from At Home to make you Christmas traditions even more memorable this year!
At Home provided some of the products featured in this post, but as always, all opinions are 100% my own. Thank you for supporting the brands that make this blog possible!
