Hi guys, welcome back to my channel. Today's video is a decorate with me for Christmas
2019. The whole Norris household is so excited about Christmas this year, so we couldn't
wait to put our Christmas decorations up. I feel like this is the first year that our
three children have all really understood what is about to happen. So they helped us
decorate and we have so many decorations to show you in today's video, because we've accumulated
quite a few over the years. So I hope you really enjoy this video. If you do give it
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So anyway, into the video, the first job is Matt's least favorite job. He needs to get
into the loft and pass me all of the Christmas decorations down and every year we're surprised
at how much we actually have up there. We have four Christmas trees. Yes, that's right,
four that we're going to show you today because we have two smaller ones that go into the
kids' room. We also have accumulated so many baubles, so many of the lights and every year
I buy a new fancy Christmas decoration. This year I have a really cute Nutcracker
to show you and we've also got some new advent calendars for the boys, which are really nice
wooden ones. So I'll show you those in a minute. But first we're going to get all of the decorations
down and then we're going to start on the first tree. And I should probably mention
that putting up all of our Christmas decorations took the entire weekend.
You'll probably notice that I am wearing different outfits throughout the weekend because we
started this on Saturday and we didn't really finish until Monday. So yes, now that is everything
out of the loft. Matt is exhausted and Jackson, bless him, he was watching the whole time.
So interested in what was going on and just looking at all the decorations and that is
everything out. And I would have to take it downstairs and
this is where we're going to put our first tree. Normally my youngest son Jackson has
a little kitchen in this space, but because we want to put a tree up here, we have put
his kitchen into his room. All of our trees are fake, the one that we're putting up here,
we found in B&Q and I think it is our best, most realistic looking tree. It's also super
simple to put up. You just kind of place it into the holder like this and then all of
the branches fall down and then what you have to do is kind of pull the branches apart to
make it look a little bit bushier. The whole family was helping out with this and while
we were doing this, we had a Christmas movie on as well, which you can see my eldest keeps
watching. It's called Get Santa and it was about Santa
going to prison and my eldest was captivated by that film, he really enjoyed it. But anyway,
we're just going to pull apart the branches. Then did the same to the second part of the
tree. Then there is a third piece that goes right at the top, so Caleb put that one on.
And I also wanted to show you how I store my lights. Every year I'll use a gift wrapping
tube to wrap the lights around and it keeps them nice and organized and untangled. And
each year we use a timer for our lights so they will naturally just come on from the
timer at 4:00 PM and then go off again at night and then come on at 6:00 AM. When we
come down in the morning for breakfast, it's really cute to see all of the trees lit up
and yeah, it's just really, really cozy. Matt is going to do the lights, that's always
sort of kind of been his job. And then I'm going to put these little bell decorations
on the tree. And here are some of the baubles that we'll be putting onto this tree, the
color scheme for this one is pretty much white and pink. I have a couple of personalized
baubles on it, but not that many, because this is our most grownup tree and this room
is very gray, pink and white. So we wanted this tree to tie into it. But we have another
one in the front room which I'll show you in a minute, which will have all of the boys
crafts on it, and it really doesn't have much of a color scheme. This is our more adult
one. But the boys were joining in decorating and just really enjoy it. Particularly Caleb,
he's very creative and he loves this kind of thing.
We're trying to just put them on as evenly as we possibly could. And while we were decorating,
we put on a few Christmas tunes as well. Of course the Mariah Carey song is our favorite.
So we were kind of dancing around and decorating.
It's looking a lot like Christmas.
Yeah. So as you can see, the boys were just really enjoying helping out with this. And
it was funny for me, I think this is the first year I have not had a toddler that is just
pulling the baubles off of the tree. Of course all of the baubles on this tree are completely
unbreakable, so if they did fall up or the kids threw them, they will not break. And
the last thing to do is to put on the star and to have a little countdown for the lights.
It's Christmas. [inaudible 00:05:18].
Yes, so that is our tree. The final touch that I do is to add tree sense. Because we
have fake trees I like to get these. This one is in cinnamon spice, but you can get
it so it smells like a real tree and all you have to do is put these little hooks onto
the top of the tree sense and then hang them within the tree. And as you walk pass you'll
get a nice waft of smell, and I think you get six in a box So I'll put three on now
and then three on at a later date. But yeah, Jackson was totally captivated by this tree
pointing at the star and daddy said he was going to make him a decoration and yeah, it
was just really cute. We did this on Saturday night and yeah, definitely feeling in the
mood now for Christmas. That is tree number one.
And then I also have some more baubles that I like to put in a vase like this with these
little fairy lights. You can get these little battery pack fairy lights, I just get them
on Amazon. But they're on a wire so they can bend around. So I'll put a little bit into
the vase like this, then add some baubles and try to move the lights around and then
hide the battery pack near the top of the vase so you can just turn it on in the evening
when you want to. And it makes a really nice centerpiece for a table.
So these baubles along with the bell decorations are from a website called Cox & Cox and it's
a bit more pricey this stuff on there. But as I said, we like to choose a few new more
expensive decorations each year and just build up our decorations that way. This one here,
I bought two years ago when Jackson was one, it's a little ornament that sings songs. It
has a snow globe and the little characters on it move around and Jackson has always loved
it and so do I. I really like things like this and it makes me very nostalgic when I
hear the little [inaudible 00:07:13] music that this plays. So we got that one a couple
of years ago, I think it was 37 pounds on Amazon.
And then I also wanted to show you a big purchase for this year, I got the boys some wooden
advent calendars and I love them. We got them personalized on My 1st Years. The only thing
about this is the doors are very small on this, so I just really have the Santa and
the elves have treats that are small enough to fit into these little doors. But yeah,
another purchase for this year is I found some new Christmasy tea towels on Zara. When
I was shopping on there, I just went onto the home section and saw these and thought
they were really festive. I love the way the little Santa hangs off on the end, so I'm
just going to put those ones out into the kitchen.
And now it's the next day, I think this was on Sunday. I'm going to focus on the front
room of our house. First of all I'm just going to wipe down our little fireplace with a granite
spray that I use from Method. Just to wipe it down, take any dust off of it as well.
To decorate this part of the house I'm first going to take a tree garland and put that
onto the fireplace. This was again from Cox & Cox and I'm just going to maneuver it so
that it is right in the middle and then add about four baubles onto the garland. The Christmas
tree in this room is very much reds and golds, so I'm going to put two red and two gold baubles
onto the garland. And then I'm also going to add a family photo that we have that was
in our decorations. This was taken in 2017 and I love this picture but it has the creepiest
looking Santa in it. But I'm going to put that in the middle of the garland and then
add some more of those battery powered lights. Again, I love these. I can just kind of bend
them around the garland and then in the evening if I want to have them on, you can just press
a little battery and it kind of glows. And I've got these little dishes from Poundland
last year. They weren't a pound though, they are a bit more expensive. And then this is
the Nutcracker that we just bought this weekend. I got it from a garden center near us. It's
really sparkly and the kids love it and I thought it would be really cute at the front
of the house. So when you walk in you'll see that.
Now, I'm wondering if I need another one to go on the other side of the fireplace to make
it all even. But the boys have taken to naming him Norman and I think it was about 70 pounds,
but again that is a big purchase for us this year. Then I'm going to light our little fake
fire, we got this from B&Q a long time ago when we had the fireplace built. It obviously
is just an electric one and then I'm also going to like the little lanterns around it.
We actually have these up all year round and just put them on when we have company. Then
I'm going to use this little magazine rack next to the couch to put the boys personalized
Christmas sacks. They'll get their presents in this on Christmas day. So I thought I would
just put them in there for now. I actually never use this rack for magazines,
only for blankets or things like this. I'm just going to put that there and then that
is that section and I'd thought turn the lights off so you can see how cute it is. And while
I'm doing this, Matt is doing another job that he just loves doing every year, I'm being
so sarcastic, he hates doing the Christmas lights, but he is really good at it. He's
going out now with the lights, we tend to put them all up around our fences because
we have a lot of glass in our living area. It all shines through and it makes the whole
house feels so Christmasy. So I fast forwarded to this evening so that you can see what he
did. He hangs this little drop lights around our
fences and obviously we can see it from indoors and it's all very Christmasy, and we also
have this little lone penguin that is outside the door as well. And while Matt was doing
the lights, I also went upstairs and changed the boys sheets for their festive sheets.
I think this is such an easy way to switch up the way a room looks and to make it look
nice and festive. I got Fraser sheets from Next and they have cross stitching on them.
There's little mooses, Christmas trees and stars. I'm just going to change those sheets
over and then move on to Caleb's room. You can see Caleb's sheets are the ElfYourself
sheets. I found these on Amazon and it's really cute because when he lays in his bed, he looks
like he is the elf, so he loves that. And then we also got him this tiny little tree
for his room. We worked with a brand last year and the boys had a tree decorating competition,
so we still have this tree and decorations from that. He decorated his little tree and
then this is the tree that goes in Fraser's room. It's amazing because it's a pre-lit
tree, so all you have to do is stick it up and then put some decorations on it. And the
boys wanted rainbow decorations last year when we got it, so they can literally do whatever
they want with this tree. And they were super proud of themselves when we turned it on.
Five, four, three, two, one.
Yeah.
Wow. Christmas coming.
Christmas is coming.
Yay.
And now on to our fourth and final tree, and this one goes in our front room and it is
by far my favorite because of the decorations that go onto it. Anything that the kids make
from school, any baubles with baby photos on it or any baubles that the boys actually
choose themself go onto this tree. So it is really special, but we've had this tree for
10 years and it is so painful to put up. You have to put each individual branch onto a
thing in the middle. I didn't show that process because it was so long and painful. But Matt's
going to put the lights up and I wanted to show you this little tree skirt. I got this
from the Great Little Trading Company and when I got it, I actually cross stitched our
name into it, the Norris family. But while we were filming this video, Matt said he actually
had never even noticed that I did it. So that was like, "Oh my gosh, really?"
But anyway, I'm going to put that onto the bottom of our tree. Again, it's a fake tree.
So I just like to cover up those little spokes and it looks really festive and cute. You
can put presents on to that part as well. So now that that is up I wanted to show you
the ornaments that go onto it. As I said, they're all really sentimental ones. We have
ones like this that Caleb made at nursery when he was a baby. This Disneyland one was
from when Matt surprised me on Christmas Day that we were going to Disneyland on Boxing
day. That one is one that the boys have chosen, the owl and the penguin. And then I made these
ornaments one year. I put on the list of what the boys actually wanted that year just so
we can remember the kind of toys that they used to love and want.
And this one is actually from our wedding day, so that is a super special one. It goes
up very high on the tree. These ones again from nursery and that is a picture of Fraser's
first ever nativity that he was in, so I made a little decoration out of that. And these
ones here have become a bit of a tradition. Every year Matt's sister will buy us one of
these and it's so cute to look at because obviously over the years our family has grown.
At first it was just Fraser and then Caleb joined and then Jackson joined. So it's really,
really sweet to look at all of those ones. But anyway, I'm going to start and put all
of the decorations up on the tree. I think by the time we got to this fourth three the
kids had enough of Christmas decorations that weekend. I kind of did this one on my own,
but I'm just going to take the most special ones and try to evenly distribute them as
much as I can. And then I have loads of red and gold baubles that I will use as fillers
at the end.
[crosstalk 00:15:35] Wow.
Yay.
Fun. [inaudible 00:16:05]. One, two, three. This is me Jackson. [inaudible 00:16:13].
Is that what it is? Okay. So I just have a few more bits to show
you, and the first one is our stockings. I found these on a website called Not On The
High Street and I love them because they're personalized. And you've probably noticed
that I really like to have things personalized on this video and they're great quality. Each
name is embroidered, some really lovely fonts and they're a really good size that you can
fit a lot into these stockings. They each have a Christmas scene on them as well, so
I've got pudding, Fraser's got snowman, Caleb's got a gingerbread man, Jackson has a Santa
and Matt has a reindeer and yeah, they were a big purchase for us one year, but I really
do love them. Then to also jazz up our stairs a bit more,
I have another Garland the same as the one on the fireplace, so I just tie that to our
stairs with a little ribbon and then I have another little battery pack of fairy lights
that I'm going to put throughout that garland as well and that is pretty much that room.
Oh, the only other thing I wanted to show you is our Christmasy throw and then I also
ordered some new cushion covers from Amazon. You may have noticed I had autumn ones and
now I have Christmas ones and they're really cute, they're very reasonable as well. So
that is everything. I hope you enjoyed this video. Thank you so much for watching and
yeah, I'll see you soon. Bye guys.