Friends, I’m just thrilled to feature my friend, Brooke, and her lovely, inspiring home. I’ve seen firsthand just how artfully she blends beauty with the practicality necessitated by family life. She has a gift for weaving spiritual depth into the fabric of her home and inspires me to do the same. And can we talk about her incredible photography skills?
Let’s step inside…
Welcome to my little cottage! I have been enjoying feathering my nest as the seasons turn and I would love to invite you to join me as we stroll through my little abode.
If you were in my home, I would have a steaming cup of something warm for both of us to enjoy. So, grab your favorite mug, fill it with something delicious, and step inside our little cottage to see how we decorated for Christmas this year!
This year, my inspiration has been the simple sweetness and beauty of the gentle hum of home, treasuring Christ together, and being surrounded by those we love as we glorify Him in this season.
Don’t Chase After Perfection
There is nothing quite like the invitation of home at Christmastime – brimming with love and cheer; with cozy lights flickering, Christmas music reminding us of our dear Savior’s birth lilting in the air, and the smell of homemade goodies lovingly baking… but let’s be honest, I don’t have it all together.
My home doesn’t always feel peaceful. In fact, if you dropped by my home at this very moment you would see:
- a home full of love, laughter, and energetic children
- a sink overflowing with dishes
- a toy nativity and the boys’ Christmas books scattered all over the living room floor
- the laundry-room-turned-gift-storing-and-wrapping-war-zone
- discarded snow boots surrounded by puddles of melted snow
- crumbs on the floor
- leftover messes from our most recent craft
- an open Bible sitting on the table from when we read about the angels visiting the shepherds
And I could go on. BUT the more I look at these scenes, the more I feel that this is exactly how the Lord meant us to find Him together. Right in the middle of the mundane, in the beautiful ordinary – the pulse of our everyday lives.
Here is the thing: I think we put too much pressure on ourselves to achieve perfection in our traditions. But friends, the very definition of tradition is a custom or belief which passes from generation to generation.
I’m finding that it doesn’t need to be an extravagant seed that is planted to grow into something meaningful. The small moments we spin within our days create richness and depth as we treasure them with our dear ones. One simple thing you do as a family this year can become a treasured tradition five years down the road.
the aim of building traditions
Most of us are familiar with Deut. 6:7 which says this is the NLT, “Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up.”
The Lord encourages us to talk of the Way when we sit down and when we rise up when we go about our days; it is a layering effect. It’s building one block upon another, upon another, upon another.
Our traditions don’t have to look a certain way – it’s simply the outpouring of our love for the Lord and our desire to make Him known every day, every moment. Showing our children’s hearts the affection of our hearts. As we continue to point to Him day in and day out, that is where tradition is built. That is where the foundations of our children’s faith is solidified.
It is not in how perfect and picture-worthy the moment seems. It’s not in how many activities you are doing, or in how beautiful your home is.
It’s pointing beyond this earth,
pointing beyond the temporary,
pointing beyond our stories and whispering of His glories.
This is how we may leave a legacy of faith.
more than decorations and to-dos
Each year as I prepare to decorate, I gather ideas and pray that the Lord would give me a vision for what He desires the theme of our Christmastide and Advent season to look like. Not just in the way I decorate or what little activities we choose to do, but how He wants to weave the Gospel story that is woven throughout all of Scripture into the fibers of our hearts and homes.
Dear friends, this theme doesn’t have to be extravagant. Rather, it’s a layering of Christ, one upon another, woven throughout the ordinary. It’s choosing the slow. It’s lingering upon the sacred and it is allowing His presence to saturate our hearts and homes.
We can treasure Christ together with our loved ones during this season by pointing our gaze to Him through the way we decorate. We can use our homes as tools to behold Him in a deeper way: with eternity in view.
Something that the Lord has been pressing on my heart in recent months is the deep desire to create an atmosphere that fosters a deep love for the Lord. Not just surface level beauty, but that which points our hearts back to Christ and Heaven.
Every story whispers His name… including the story of our home.
a tradition in the making
I decided that I wanted to carry on a tradition my mom started and teach the boys a poem I was taught years ago. It was a stanza from one of my favorite Christmas carols, In the Bleak Midwinter.
To this day, I remember that little verse memorized in my girlhood: “What can I give Him, poor as I am?” Being the romantic that I am, I wanted to pass this along to my boys. Planting the rich truth in my boys’ hearts as my mother planted in my heart.
The Lord (in only the way He can work in our hearts) highlighted two songs to the boys that they have now claimed as “theirs.” They light up every time they hear these two songs and I often find them humming the tune as they play. “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” and “Little Drummer Boy” have been a huge part of our home this year.
All the greenery, please
One of my favorite ways to decorate our home during wintertime is to bring in fresh wreaths and boughs of cedar, pine, evergreen, and winter berries to brighten up our little cottage. The warmth and cheer they bring to our home as the weather turns cold just makes my heart happy.
Inside we have boughs of fresh greenery brightening up our rooms and steeping it in the most heavenly scent. I just love the smell of a forest inside my home. Adding fresh forest trimmings is such a simple, inexpensive, and beautiful way to make the atmosphere of your home changes instantly.
I typically get one 25-foot cedar garland (compliments of Costco) which is only about $17. You’ll also find me tromping through the snow, scissors in hand, gathering and foraging even more greenery. I drape, tuck, and make homemade wreaths to scatter about my home. I hope that fresh garlands and homemade wreaths will begin shaping fond memories for my boys as they have for me over the years.
This year, I was inspired by the soft blue-hued juniper berries. Juniper has a strong fragrance and the most perfect, subtle blue color in their berries.
With juniper berries in mind, I found a couple spools of pretty dusky blue velvet ribbon for our tree that were 50% off at Hobby Lobby that I knew I could incorporate throughout our home. I tucked the juniper branches into my cedar garland and in my homemade wreaths to make it all cohesive.
help your greenery last
Over the years I have learned a few tricks on how to help indoor garlands and fresh clippings last a bit longer. So here are a few tips for you when it comes to keeping live greenery alive for longer!
- Soak it overnight in your sink. Completely immerse it. This helps the greenery soak up plenty of moisture.
- Spray it with Wilt Pruf and let it dry outside before bringing it back inside.
- Every once in awhile mist with water to continue adding extra moisture.
christmas cheer in the home
A few ideas for you to consider for creating your own simple, subtle touches of Christmas cheer pointing back to Emmanuel:
Plant bulbs together. The boys and I planted paperwhite bulbs together for Advent this year. Painting a picture of our longing and hopeful expectation for our dear Savior’s birth. Waiting in hope, longing, and excitement for our flowers to blossom, for Christmas to come, and for Christ’s return.
It’s an outward expression of our inward hope. The bonus is the intoxicating scent that fills the air once these bloom. These delicate clustered of pure white blossoms will be a sweet reprieve during the chill of winter. These also make charming and thoughtful Christmas gifts.
Adding a gorgeous wreath is such an easy way to give an entire room an elegant holiday feel!
I also scatter small reminders throughout our home such as photos, hymns/carols that we are studying together, and Scripture to point our hearts back upon the Lord.
Layering.
All pointing to the greatest story.
I also have a Little People Nativity that the boys are always excited to play with each year when we pull out of our Christmas boxes. I love that they can interact with the Nativity story through their imaginations and hands-on-play. This year my husband, Josh, and I have been hiding Mary and Joseph around the house for the boys to find as they “travel to Bethlehem”!
Books are a huge part of our days. We love cuddling up on the couch and read a stack of books. I love seeing how the Lord uses examples throughout our days that touch on exactly what we read about.
your home as an invitation
Our homes can be an invitation to behold the Lord together. Through the ins and outs of everyday life, we can rest in heavenly peace know that we are not ultimately in charge of causing our children’s souls to blossom.
It’s not in the perfection of our traditions or how magically our homes are decorated or how picture-perfect our crafts look that will change their hearts. We simply point our hearts and the hearts of our children to the Cross to which we cling.
We are the agents of His glorious gospel in the souls of our children. Our comfort is knowing that the Lord is the conductor of our days and we can harmoniously weave the melody of the gospel as it courses through our days with Him guiding us. And we can leave the rest in the Lord’s capable and all-knowing hands.
“The King is coming,
Open up your eyes to see it.
Open up your ears to hear it.
The King is coming.
Open up your mind – believe it.
Open up your heart – receive Him.”
With Love,
Brooke
Brooke is the adoring wife to her husband, Josh, and a mother to two precious sons, Josiah and David. Her passion as a wife, mother, and homemaker is to weave a tapestry of grace that points to Christ in every fiber of their daily lives.
In addition to being a stay-at-home mom, she and her husband own a photography business together, Living Reflection Photography, where they seek to capture God-given legacies as they reflect the Master Artist in every frame. She occasionally blogs at Reckless Pursuit and you can follow Brooke on Instagram.
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From the archives:
Christmas Home Tours: A Townhome Cottage
