Decorating our Apartment for Christmas

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

Christmas has well and truly arrived which means the tree is up, the lights are lit, the glorious scent of Cinnamon and Gingerbread is wafting through our home, but if I'm being honest with you it's been this way for at least a good few weeks already. 

This is both mine and Jay's first Christmas in our own place so I'm sure you can imagine the excitement both of us felt when it came to building our little Christmas collection and decorating our place for the first time. Jay uttered the words 'I don't think we need anymore babe?' more times than I care to admit. He's right in saying that however given that living in an apartment doesn't provide us with much space, to begin with, and while it's all well and good going silly decking our apartment with all the bells and holly in reality we have to consider storage after. So I did my best to reign it in and with that considered, I like to think we've done a good job of laying the foundation by buying decorations designed to carry us through many more Christmas's to come.

As this is our very first Christmas together in our own place this meant starting from scratch with everything, including buying 

A tree. 

Now unlike the majority of Instagram (no shade), we decided to just go for a good old shop-bought one in the end. In hindsight, it seemed like the most practical option given that neither of us drives nor could we find a place close to the city that allowed us to pick our own so shop-bought seemed the way to go plus it's less faff init?

Before even buying a tree though firstly we had to decide on a particular colour scheme or style we wanted to opt for when it came to picking decorations. Naturally, I'd been waiting my entire life for this kind of stuff so my Pinterest boards were loaded and ready to go but in the end, those became very loose ideas and instead we just let it all come together naturally. 

I found myself gravitating to a lot of reds and berries already but when Jay sent me a link for a berry and cone adorned tree on Argos we both instantly knew it was the one. 

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When it came to decorating the tree I had tab upon tab open on my phone each from an array of shops selling baubles. I'd already come from home with some, which considering we moved in February seemed kind of ridiculous to bring with me, but I'm glad I did.

Admittedly I thought I wouldn't have enough which is why I'd begun to look at buying more but once we had the tree up and ready to go I realised I had more than enough with me which came as a surprise I have to admit considering the one I previously used to decorate in my bedroom was around 3 quarters smaller than the one we have now.  

I actually think the baubles pair perfectly with our Tame Impala print that sits behind it.

    Candles 

When it comes to candles I can't help myself. That much has become apparent ever since we moved in. Especially when it comes to 'themed occasions' (I bought a few back in Halloween) so as soon as I saw that Christmas Tree candles were a thing I simply had to buy some. 

I firstly spotted them on H&M's website but unfortunately, they appeared to be sold out. I believe this was back in October! So when I happened to pop in on a quiet Tuesday morning and saw them sitting pretty on the shelf I grabbed them faster than you could scream 'Christmas tree'. 

After much deliberation, I went for one big green one with the idea to have it sat on the coffee table and I picked out 2 small white ones that I imagined would sit on either side of a shelf or the TV for example but actually, the green has ended up on top of our shoe storage cupboard shelf and the white trees instead sit on the coffee table, but honestly, I feel like you could sit them anywhere and they'd look nice.

Admittedly since buying them, I've come across several different styles even in the Poundshop, I think I may have been a bit hasty when it came to getting them but I have to say that these are still the best version I've found. 

Later I came across a little polar bear candle in Tesco one morning before work and couldn't resist buying him, I mean have you seen his face??

The other Candles I bought were two-star pillar candles from Primark, I thought these would be great even after Christmas for everyday use but I liked the idea of them being sat on our table for Christmas Day alongside the other red taper candles I picked up in Tiger. These ones I bought not really knowing if I had a stand to put them in, at least until I remembered I'd bought a taper holder previously when we'd first moved in, ones I'm actually not too fond of so I came up with the idea of using two napkin rings to place around the top of the holder to disguise it as well as help the candle to sit upright. I love the outcome. 

Wreath

One thing I wanted more than anything this year was a wreath. I toyed with the idea of making my own, something I'll be sure to do at some point but for this year instead, I ended up buying one from Primark. It fits perfectly with our 'berries and cones' theme and I figured it would be the perfect foundation to eventually add other things to, which is what I did. I bought some dried clementines, and cinnamon sticks from the Poundshop and added them on with some wire. I think it just gives it a little something, something as well as making it look that bit more festive.

Then with the remaining cinnamon sticks, clementine slices and cones (lovingly given to me by my mum), I decided to put them into a little 'Holly Bowl' I'd also grabbed from Primark. I initially bought it with the idea to put Christmas snacks in it on the table for when we have visitors over but I didn't like the idea of it sitting in the cupboard until then so I decided to get it out on display. It works wonderfully as a potpourri style decoration.