Give Peas a Chance: Deck the (Dining) Halls!

Christmas Chandelier in the dining room.

I'm pretty much done with decorating for Christmas, it's just a matter of sharing all these photos with you guys! I love the way my lights turned out in the dining room and in the kitchen area. I've had this tree and the ornaments for it for a while now. The only thing I purchased this year are the Holly berries. I originally wanted to gather some from our yard, but I wasn't sure how they would hold up. Does anyone know if the leaves stay green and the berries stay bright? I think I'll gather some for a smaller arrangement to do a little research. But for now, here is our dining room!

Christmas dining room.

I leave our Willow Tree nativity out year round, when there's room! The Noel banner was originally going to go on the fireplace but there's simply no room there. I made the banner a while back for a photo shoot we had. Below is a better picture of it, and a tutorial can be found here.

Noel Christmas banner.

The lighting was fairly simple. I used a wreath I had for the greenery. I attached it with some baker's twine, but after this light I switched over to floral wire! It is much easier to work with, if you get the green coated wire it's nearly impossible to see and the coating will protect the finish on the fixtures. All the bows you see in any of these pictures were made by my 11 year old, who is quite the rock star bow maker. She helped me with this whole room. I attached the tails to the bows after she made them. I used wire to attach the bow to the light fixture. Because I am unsure if I'll always have these lights I just poked the Holly berries into the wreath. So far none have fallen and I didn't have to use the hot glue gun.

Christmas Chandelier with Holly berries.

The beads are Christmas tree garland that I hung from the fixture. I just tucked the ends into the wreath. Here are some close ups because I'm just loving how this turned out!

See that baker's twine? Use that floral wire to avoid that. Not that you can see the twine unless you are searching for it.

I love the simplicity of the beads, but also that they add just a little "bling". The Holly berries were a great buy, 40 pieces for $6 at Target, there was enough to do the fixtures, dining chairs, and I have some leftover!

Simple Christmas decoration for chairs.

This ribbon has gone a long way. I had two rolls of it that I got 75% off one year. It's a pretty fabric and the wiring is perfect for decorating with. For the chairs I went very simple, just a bow and a sprig of Holly.

Christmas centerpiece dining room table.

This centerpiece was an accident. I bought the lanterns (75% off, thanks Michael's!) but wasn't sure what to do with them. I am not sure they were made for real candles, a LED battery operated candle would work though. I may look for a couple of those. Around the base of the lantern is ... I don't know what it is. I think it's supposed to be a wreath. I found it in the one of the Christmas boxes and it just happens to fit around the lantern. It already had pinecones and berries. Which reminds me, the weather has cleared up so I think we'll go pinecone picking! Inside the lantern is is where the girls tossed extra napkin rings and berry springs, whatever works I guess.

Dining room Christmas tree.

The tree. It's a smaller tree, 6.5 foot, but it's a great size for this room. Some of the ornaments are picture frames, and I still haven't ordered photos for them! The running joke is seeing the happy face of uncle so and so, or cousin such and such smiling at us from the tree. Some of those stock photos have some good looking folks on them, :) .

All these ornaments and the beads are from when we had this tree up in Florida.