**The True Spirit of Christmas**

As we approach the holiday season, many of us find ourselves caught up in the hustle and bustle of decorating, entertaining, and gift-giving. But amidst all the chaos, it's easy to lose sight of what truly matters. For our family, Christmas has always been about more than just presents and festivities - it's about being together, creating memories, and finding joy in the simple things.

In our household, we've learned that perfection is not the goal. In fact, we've found that imperfection can be a blessing in disguise. Think back to a time when you might have gotten stressed out trying to create the perfect Christmas display or hosting the perfect holiday party. Maybe you spent hours agonizing over every detail, only to find that something went awry on the big day. For us, those moments have taught us that it's not about achieving perfection, but about creating an experience that's truly special.

For us, the most important thing is to focus on what's really important: family time. We've learned that the true spirit of Christmas is about being together, enjoying each other's company, and making memories that will last a lifetime. And it doesn't have to be stressful or overwhelming. In fact, we often find ourselves feeling more relaxed and joyful when we simplify our approach to the holiday season.

One way we do this is by not taking ourselves too seriously. We don't feel like we need to create a perfect Christmas display or entertain with a flawless party. Instead, we focus on creating an ambiance that's festive and fun - think cozy lights, warm firesides, and delicious treats. And when things don't go exactly as planned, we don't stress about it. We simply roll with the punches and enjoy each other's company.

**Our Approach to Christmas**

So, what does our approach to Christmas look like? For us, it starts with a focus on creating an ideal holiday experience - one that's tailored to our family's unique needs and preferences. We think about what we want this season to feel like: do we want to wake up to a festive morning with hot cocoa in hand? Do we want to spend the afternoon lounging by the fire, sipping coffee and swapping stories? Whatever it is, we make sure that our decor and entertainment reflect those desires.

We also prioritize simplicity over complexity. We don't feel like we need to host an elaborate holiday party or decorate every inch of our home with garlands and lights. In fact, we often find ourselves feeling more relaxed and joyful when we simplify our approach to the holiday season. By focusing on what's truly important - family time, coziness, and joy - we're able to create a sense of wonder and enchantment that's hard to find in the midst of all the chaos.

**Our Tips for a Stress-Free Christmas**

Over the years, we've developed nine tips that have helped us create a stress-free and joyful holiday season. From creating an ideal ambiance to prioritizing simplicity over complexity, we've learned what works and what doesn't. And today, we're excited to share those tips with you.

First and foremost, it's all about perspective. We remind ourselves that Christmas is a time for joy, love, and connection - not perfection or stress. By shifting our focus to what truly matters, we're able to create an experience that's truly special.

Next, we prioritize flexibility. No matter how much planning we do, things are always going to go awry. And that's okay! Instead of stressing about every little detail, we learn to roll with the punches and enjoy each other's company.

We also believe in the power of intentionality. Before we start decorating or entertaining, we take a moment to reflect on what we truly want this season to feel like. What are our goals? What do we want to create? By setting clear intentions, we're able to focus on what matters most and avoid unnecessary stress.

**Our Gift Guide**

For those of you who may be struggling to find the perfect gift for your loved ones, don't worry! We've got you covered. Our latest holiday gift guide features a curated selection of presents that are sure to delight - from luxury items to budget-friendly treasures, we have something for every taste and budget.

From kitchen essentials to tech gadgets and everything in between, our gift guide is designed to make shopping easy and fun. So why not take a look? And if you're still unsure what to get, feel free to reach out to us - we'd be happy to help!

**Our Amazon Store**

Another resource that might come in handy during the holiday season is our Amazon store. As many of you have mentioned, it's been surprisingly popular this year! With thousands of items under one roof, we've made shopping a breeze.

From home decor to toys and gifts for kids of all ages, our Amazon store has something for everyone. And because we know that sometimes things can sell out quickly, we're happy to provide links to these products in case you need them too.

**Cozying Up at Home**

One of the best ways to get into the holiday spirit is by cozying up at home. For us, this means snuggling up by the fire with a good book and some warm hot cocoa. It's a simple pleasure, but one that never fails to bring joy.

Whether you're a fan of classic holiday movies or modern holiday rom-coms, we believe that there's something for everyone on the Netflix holiday schedule. So grab a cup of coffee, snuggle up under a blanket, and enjoy!

**The Power of Imperfection**

Finally, as we close out this post, we want to remind you that imperfection is not something to be feared or avoided. In fact, it can often be a blessing in disguise.

When things don't go exactly as planned, remember that it's okay! Take a deep breath, laugh, and enjoy the moment. Because at the end of the day, it's not about perfection - it's about connection, love, and joy.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: ensome of you are going to throw plastic balls at me in a minute from your tree let me remind you again we're doing this video because you wanted our help oh my god this is the one of the biggest mistakes i cannot believe i didn't put this earlier this is a huge mistake and it is free to fix okay it's huge it's huge oh they're gonna be so mad at me they're gonna be so mad at me but you're so cute it's hard to be mad at you it's easy to be mad at me okay then you say it hello and welcome to the house of valentina i'm valentina and my husband jack and i we're just hanging out and it's like that moment right before the storm the calm before the storm we have our coffee but we know we know the storm is coming we know the fun stuff is about to happen we do and we're so excited because the holidays are basically upon us and we have a whole bunch of deliveries happening we've been prepping for quite a few weeks actually definitely for our own holiday decor and we were talking about some of the mistakes that we feel like we've made or we see other people make and what kind of keeps us from getting that ideal perfect christmas decor in our homes and so we thought we would share some of the tips and tricks that we've learned ourselves and also things that we see other people doing we get the comments every single day from people saying please give us some advice on how to do christmas decor we want to take it to the next level we want to make it feel like our own home and we don't quite know how to do it these will be really helpful tips for you if you're trying to have that perfect authentic to you holiday decor that will just feel so right so i hope that you will find each of these tips super helpful we have a lot of great videos coming up soon we cannot wait to share with you guys so make sure you hit subscribe give us a thumbs up and then check out our playlist because we have a holiday playlist from the last few years worth of stuff we've released that you can check out down below as well loaded with tips and tricks that you can check out now while we um hurry up and decorate our own house so we can share that with you as well so without further ado let's jump into decorating mistakes you are making and maybe us too so yeah let's jump in okay mistake number one is actually pretty common we see pretty often that people they tend to just sort of superimpose christmas and holiday decor on their house and it's usually a traditional style whether they have a traditional house or not and a lot of times they just sort of i don't know it just feels like christmas kind of puked on the house and it feels like i don't know like it doesn't belong it doesn't feel like it fits it doesn't feel like the house was designed for the holiday decor it just feels super imposed one of the easiest things that you can do is to really take some time and think about your home and what style you actually have think about your own furniture think about the color palette that you have in your house and think about the things that would help your home to feel more cohesive at the holidays so that it doesn't feel like it was just like do you know what i'm saying yeah it's like when you go to a fast food restaurant they have a salad and you're like this doesn't make any sense what are you doing well it does for those of us that like eating i came here for 9 000 calories worth of bacon not for salad and i think sometimes that's what it feels like it feels like the home like a box was delivered i think it's a little bit more like going to an asian restaurant and getting served chicken fingers like it's like that yeah it's like this jarring like whoa what that's that's not what belongs it's like that's not what i was expecting and so i think that it's actually a lot of fun so you can think about those pieces of furniture and you can start building your christmas decor off of those core pieces and that way when you bring it out year after year you have a really solid core of things and you're able to then take that style whether you have a traditional home you have a contemporary home whether it's mid-century modern if it's farmhouse whatever it is your decor now you just sort of start building it over time and creating a cohesive look that you'll be able to enjoy the next mistake that we see people making all the time and we are 100 guilty of this ourselves and that is using the same decor year after year in the past we would just pull out the same stuff every single year and it was kind of mindless like we would literally just grab the totes they were labeled christmas on them we grabbed the toast you don't even think about it you're just like hanging ornaments and next thing you know and there's nothing i mean i would usually do that for a long time i would usually have like a color palette for the year i might go and buy red you know little ball ornaments or something like that i would have like a color that i would just try to infuse into the space but i wasn't really thinking through this doesn't go like it doesn't it was very much right half the time you just pull out the same stuff and just put it up there and without even thinking about what do i actually want this year yeah i think it's important because i think a lot of times we feel like we have to pull it all out that it's like the one time of year to go down and pull out all the bins i've started to sort even just through what we have in those bins and then a few times i got rid of stuff and i kind of regretted it because the year after that i was in a completely different mood at the holidays and so i wanted something totally different and i would have used some of that so what i've started to do is to sort out what i have and what i'm going to use this year and then i just keep the rest put away in storage yeah but you do do that you what i've seen you do is that you store and you kind of rotate and after a few years if we haven't used it in a few years then we're finally like maybe it's time to get rid of exactly i mean there are some collectibles there are some really precious ornaments we have which we all have that we never want to get rid of they just may not see the light of day anytime soon or they may be on the back of the tree yes i kind of alluded to this one before and i see that a lot of people don't create a color palette and i think that that's something that is really really easy to do especially if you do want to pull out a lot of what you already have the easiest way to make everything feel cohesive is to just go buy a couple boxes of one colored ornament one of the little they always call them bobbles in the uh in the uk what do we call those here the little round just ornaments balls balls like christmas months does it sound right the spheres that doesn't sound christmas fears it's just weird i don't know they're the balls that's what we always call them as kids so if you go and you buy a big pack of those it's really inexpensive it's not something that's going to cost you a lot of money go buy a pack of all the same color or you can even if you have some that maybe aren't the color that you want take them out in the backyard and i don't know it's like i can see right just what is she gonna say i'm not gonna kill them destroy them just forget a spray paint kill the spheres we're going to spray paint them spray paint spray paint what you already have you did a diy on that last year i think i did you like poured some glue in them or something it did glitter and other kind of stuff there's so many ways to get those colors that you maybe don't see anywhere else if you just play with it i think it's fun too to match your ribbon to the ornaments they don't just match perfectly you just have like your palette i always say a color palette because yeah otherwise if you want everything in one color first of all it'll stress you out trying to find the exact color and second of all it's gonna look really flat so a color palette that really looks nice with everything that you have works well with maybe some cushions or maybe you switch out your cushions this time of year i love going to places like amazon and h m and finding some pillow covers and just switching out what you have matching the ribbons i shop a lot i've already shopped a lot on amazon this year for beautiful ribbons and wrapping paper and you can just kind of create this little cohesive color palette that is breathtaking and it really doesn't cost you hardly anything and it sounds limiting but what it actually does it gives you unbelievable amount of freedom because you literally have your colors and you're just you just look at stuff you're like if it's not on this palette i'm not gonna use it so it actually i think it makes life a lot easier it does actually sometimes i'm like no i'm in the store and i'm like that's cute but i don't need that i think i don't i agree that does actually help yeah see you're saving us money i'm saving this money i'm saving money you're spending it let me remind you again we're doing this video because you wanted our help you asked for this you asked for this one okay oh louie's like what's she doing i know he loves it when she has the evil laugh poor doggy hi baby did you hear my evil laugh it's like i love the evil thing you're naked where's your christmas sweater it's like i'm ashamed i'm naked hi i think that a lot of people end up using way too much faux greenery i think that it just looks bo yeah it really does show it i think that it just ends up looking just kind of fake and there's just something it just doesn't feel authentic and i think for us because he has a pine allergy we all people understand that sometimes oh yeah you just need some faux greenery in your house and sometimes it is a challenge to find something really amazing now we've ordered some stuff from terrain yes which is also in partnership with anthropology so i will leave you links below to the stuff that we have found we have found some amazing trees and greenery this year yeah and you guys keep asking for it if you've watched the gift guides i'm getting literally comment after comment where'd you get the faux greenery from because it looks amazing we get it we decorate early a lot of you decorate earlier and you don't want it to be a fire hazard by the mid part of november yes so we understand that but there are some fun ways i think you can definitely buy really nice foe which doesn't look as faux yeah definitely check back from our videos from last year because even the year before i do a lot i've done a lot of videos in the past about how to use faux and then add in some live greenery different ways to jazz it up because we'll be talking about that more in the coming days but even if you do have a little bit of faux i think you can buy some really really nice faux greenery these days but you can also jazz up what you have and make it look even better i think another big mistake is not layering on the cozy factor i think that that's really important i feel like people go one of two directions it's either really really sloppy and i gave up and there's just like fuzzy blankets everywhere and you're just like oh god i don't know this is too comfortable for me i need some structure somewhere here or it's just cold and stiff and there's like nothing that really warms up the space and makes it feel inviting i think there's somewhere in the middle which is where we try to land all the time where it feels approachable it feels festive but it also feels cozy because this is where like even here we always have extra blankets and things it's a good time of year to add a basket and some really cozy blankets so that you can cozy up on the sofa and watch all your favorite movies it's really important to have that cozy factor so we had always a lot of blankets we had a lot of candles a lot i feel like ever since living in scandinavia we've always done more candles than ever before and i think you can dim the lights and there's just all those kinds of things that create ambiance and i think that that's basically free you probably already have some candles in your house you probably already have some blankets but you really just want to bring that sort of ambiance into your space instead of like decor and decor santa body pillows and onesies i don't know it's just not our face the kids love them though honestly oh my god this is the one of the biggest mistakes i cannot believe i didn't put this earlier this is a huge mistake and it is free to fix okay it's huge it's huge i'm not kidding i'm not fronting it's big what what is it so many people do not realize that you can move your furniture no you cannot once you place furniture in a home until the day you die it stays there it does not and especially in our house i mean i know every stuff has wheels on it guys i install wheels on every piece of furniture they're on roombas they just move themselves around okay that's like not true but yeah seriously though you do not have to have the same room layout a lot of times people just literally leave their furniture wherever it was and just stick the tree in and we went to someone's house recently and the tree was there so i'm like on the couch like this because the tree is hanging over the couch and i'm like move the couch you're okay it's okay you can move it back you got like sap on my face from the limb and it's like move the tree move something so seriously think about your roommate layout because we always change the room layout for the holidays we the the room shifts around things leave the room things come into the room we think about the fact that we're going to have more people in the house than normal so we might bring in some extra chairs that jack is putting together right now right now as soon as this video is over so but part of that part of that comes from pre-planning like we know it's like we're going to start decorating today most likely and we know we've already gone on to the next one and not pre-planning is one of the biggest mistakes that people make so you just segued us perfectly yeah because i think the plan helps you understand what to do with the furniture because we know which room we're going to open presents in one of the things that her family brought into my life is stockings that are the size of small trucks you plan things out yes and then you're like we're gonna need more room to sit here yes we're gonna need more chairs we're gonna need to lay this room out a little differently so we do a lot of free planning so we're kind of mushing these two together but pre-planning out the room the way that it's laid out pre-planning you really pre-planning goes into a lot more than just the room design i think that there's a lot of panic buying at the end so a couple people were like oh you have christmas in your house already and we're like christmas was here before halloween ended yeah we pulled the christmas out for the halloween photos yes we actually really did okay so we are a little bit further ahead than most people because we want to get ideas out to you guys early enough for you to be able to enjoy them and to be able to utilize them this year but yeah i mean we we plan pretty far in advance because we know that things are going to sell out we know that things are i don't want to only be able to purchase what's available at my local store i may need to order some stuff i'm going to order some stuff and if i can't find what i want i'm probably going to diy it so a lot of that comes in from planning and having an idea of what i really want and just really enjoying executing that full design i think another big mistake that people make is that they don't empty the room emptying your room completely is one of the best things you can do for yourself because you need to feel the space you'll get new ideas from it as you're shifting things around and getting it all prepped for the season i do think that by clearing everything out it gives you the space to see the architecture of your room to understand what you're working with and to envision something new for your space that i know that a lot will come back in yeah but i think then you can see how to mix it together a little bit better so that you feel like okay i don't i don't want the walls to feel like they're coming in on me at the holidays i don't i don't like that feeling so that's a personal decor decision i think that it i think it actually is really helpful i feel like i'm going below the belt again and people are gonna be so mad at me they're gonna be so mad at me but you're so cute it's hard to be mad at you it's easy to be mad at me okay then you say it this one is blood i don't see if louie will say it okay go for it some of you are going to throw plastic balls at me in a minute from your tree this next one is not investing in nice things we're just gonna drop the mic back i gotta go bye is that it it's totally him i'm blaming him okay but it is true i think a lot of times we get to where we we we decorate the easy way and i think that it is a little bit of a shame to only ever buy plastic ornaments because you're afraid they'll break like i was talking about earlier the the greenery that we bought this year is so much nicer than anything we've ever owned it's incredible and honestly i wish we'd done it earlier because over the years we've tried so many of the less expensive that we could have just bought the better stuff to get to start with yeah it would have been a better investment totally and i've got some other things that i've ordered from amazon so stay tuned because i'm gonna share with you my impressions of those in the coming days but i think it's important to have a like just some core items like that greenery it doesn't matter what style we ever change to it's going to come back out every single time um stockings might be something that we might change up some people are huge traditionalists if you're going to pull out the same stockings every single year you need to get something that isn't going to fall apart i think it's really important it's a really good formula to think about if you're wanting something to last over multiple years invest if you want it just for this year you know you're just like i just want a few of these whatever then you don't have to invest as much don't feel like you have to but that's one of the things we've done is we've gone with more timeless and more legacy pieces for kind of the core yeah and then we can play around with some of the other stuff and finally i think that is super important to remember the reason for the season i know that does sound a little bit cheesy but i think so often when i go over to somebody's house and i just feel like everyone is stressed out at the holidays they don't seem to be having a whole lot of fun and they're just stressed out about having people in their home they're stressed out about the decor and getting it perfect and everything has to be just right and i think the most important thing is to remember that this time of year for some of you you're not even going to celebrate christmas i mean we've lived we lived in in morocco and they didn't celebrate christmas there and i think for us it gave us a really big perspective on the season itself and what's really important about it and from that point forward for us we just realized it's about family time it's about being together for us the being home i'm gonna get all teary-eyed and stuff oh my gosh i can't even like this time of year the most important thing isn't that the decor is perfect but that it's perfect for you and it's for your life and it's for your family and it's something that should enhance your life it shouldn't be stressful you can throw a party we could throw a party in five minutes we can literally open the door in five minutes and pull out some little cheeses and some crackers and lay something out and entertain yeah and and the reason that i've gotten to this point is it's like it's not important that it's perfect do i enjoy fussing over all the details i do i love planning out the tree and and moving the furniture and getting it all prepped but at the end of the day the most important thing is that we're trying to work towards an experience for ourselves and for our family yeah and ultimately when things aren't perfect we don't care if things get spilled if an ornament gets broken it doesn't matter because we're here and we're together and that's a precious thing so yeah these nine tips and this one the tenth these tips are really just meant to help you create your ideal christmas like that's really that's what we do is simply we think through what do we want that morning to feel like when the kids come running down the stairs what do we want it to feel like when your parents pull up that day for for this you know brunch and christmas presents in the afternoon and stuff like that yeah and then the decor simply facilitates that so we don't take it too seriously yeah like we really really don't laying on the couch on the days before leading up and afterwards and just that sort of festive that sort of ambiance that we talked about i think that that is the most important thing and when you focus on that it'll make all your decisions so much less stressful and you should be able to enjoy your home i can't wait i know i can't wait what a gift i think it's amazing so um yeah we're gonna finish off our little coffees here and uh jack's gonna go find his santa hat and we are legit gonna start decorating our home and getting it ready yeah i can't wait definitely create that moment yeah so make sure you hit subscribe we're going to have a full home tour coming up we're working on each of the kids rooms and the full house yeah and if you need more gift ideas look down below you'll see a link to our gift guide playlist that just came out over the last few days we have gift guides for every single thing you can think of luxury budget him her the whole thing so make sure you check those out as well also we'll also leave a link to our amazon store because a lot of you were saying that a lot of the stuff had sold out so we have links to our amazon store and ipin constantly to pinterest so i'm going to leave links for both of those places because those are two easy places that you could also shop if you find that some of the stuff is sold out that way there's plenty of choices and i have been addicted amazon store has gotten big it has i'm like i gotta stop but i'm like oh just a couple more yeah so click down below and you will have so much fun yes so thank you guys so much for stopping in and we will see in the next one cheers cheers over the years i've i guess louie agrees i guess so i got 42 wreaths and 17 000 likes so cute christmas i need some helpers i really need some helpers we'll just gonna keep our kids out of school for illness yes we're not feeling doing well we're not really doing that they smell like faux pine i don't know but we are not actually doing that we really are kidding we're seriously actually kidding we really are kidding take that very seriously they actually were sick yesterday they're really gonna be sick tomorrow when the boxes come up for the world series parade he's actually trying to push he's trying to push me off the couch the dog is trying to kill me on live video he's like you are in my way he's like i don't like you oh my god that's the most evil look he's ever given me i'm just kidding here you've just been laughing yousome of you are going to throw plastic balls at me in a minute from your tree let me remind you again we're doing this video because you wanted our help oh my god this is the one of the biggest mistakes i cannot believe i didn't put this earlier this is a huge mistake and it is free to fix okay it's huge it's huge oh they're gonna be so mad at me they're gonna be so mad at me but you're so cute it's hard to be mad at you it's easy to be mad at me okay then you say it hello and welcome to the house of valentina i'm valentina and my husband jack and i we're just hanging out and it's like that moment right before the storm the calm before the storm we have our coffee but we know we know the storm is coming we know the fun stuff is about to happen we do and we're so excited because the holidays are basically upon us and we have a whole bunch of deliveries happening we've been prepping for quite a few weeks actually definitely for our own holiday decor and we were talking about some of the mistakes that we feel like we've made or we see other people make and what kind of keeps us from getting that ideal perfect christmas decor in our homes and so we thought we would share some of the tips and tricks that we've learned ourselves and also things that we see other people doing we get the comments every single day from people saying please give us some advice on how to do christmas decor we want to take it to the next level we want to make it feel like our own home and we don't quite know how to do it these will be really helpful tips for you if you're trying to have that perfect authentic to you holiday decor that will just feel so right so i hope that you will find each of these tips super helpful we have a lot of great videos coming up soon we cannot wait to share with you guys so make sure you hit subscribe give us a thumbs up and then check out our playlist because we have a holiday playlist from the last few years worth of stuff we've released that you can check out down below as well loaded with tips and tricks that you can check out now while we um hurry up and decorate our own house so we can share that with you as well so without further ado let's jump into decorating mistakes you are making and maybe us too so yeah let's jump in okay mistake number one is actually pretty common we see pretty often that people they tend to just sort of superimpose christmas and holiday decor on their house and it's usually a traditional style whether they have a traditional house or not and a lot of times they just sort of i don't know it just feels like christmas kind of puked on the house and it feels like i don't know like it doesn't belong it doesn't feel like it fits it doesn't feel like the house was designed for the holiday decor it just feels super imposed one of the easiest things that you can do is to really take some time and think about your home and what style you actually have think about your own furniture think about the color palette that you have in your house and think about the things that would help your home to feel more cohesive at the holidays so that it doesn't feel like it was just like do you know what i'm saying yeah it's like when you go to a fast food restaurant they have a salad and you're like this doesn't make any sense what are you doing well it does for those of us that like eating i came here for 9 000 calories worth of bacon not for salad and i think sometimes that's what it feels like it feels like the home like a box was delivered i think it's a little bit more like going to an asian restaurant and getting served chicken fingers like it's like that yeah it's like this jarring like whoa what that's that's not what belongs it's like that's not what i was expecting and so i think that it's actually a lot of fun so you can think about those pieces of furniture and you can start building your christmas decor off of those core pieces and that way when you bring it out year after year you have a really solid core of things and you're able to then take that style whether you have a traditional home you have a contemporary home whether it's mid-century modern if it's farmhouse whatever it is your decor now you just sort of start building it over time and creating a cohesive look that you'll be able to enjoy the next mistake that we see people making all the time and we are 100 guilty of this ourselves and that is using the same decor year after year in the past we would just pull out the same stuff every single year and it was kind of mindless like we would literally just grab the totes they were labeled christmas on them we grabbed the toast you don't even think about it you're just like hanging ornaments and next thing you know and there's nothing i mean i would usually do that for a long time i would usually have like a color palette for the year i might go and buy red you know little ball ornaments or something like that i would have like a color that i would just try to infuse into the space but i wasn't really thinking through this doesn't go like it doesn't it was very much right half the time you just pull out the same stuff and just put it up there and without even thinking about what do i actually want this year yeah i think it's important because i think a lot of times we feel like we have to pull it all out that it's like the one time of year to go down and pull out all the bins i've started to sort even just through what we have in those bins and then a few times i got rid of stuff and i kind of regretted it because the year after that i was in a completely different mood at the holidays and so i wanted something totally different and i would have used some of that so what i've started to do is to sort out what i have and what i'm going to use this year and then i just keep the rest put away in storage yeah but you do do that you what i've seen you do is that you store and you kind of rotate and after a few years if we haven't used it in a few years then we're finally like maybe it's time to get rid of exactly i mean there are some collectibles there are some really precious ornaments we have which we all have that we never want to get rid of they just may not see the light of day anytime soon or they may be on the back of the tree yes i kind of alluded to this one before and i see that a lot of people don't create a color palette and i think that that's something that is really really easy to do especially if you do want to pull out a lot of what you already have the easiest way to make everything feel cohesive is to just go buy a couple boxes of one colored ornament one of the little they always call them bobbles in the uh in the uk what do we call those here the little round just ornaments balls balls like christmas months does it sound right the spheres that doesn't sound christmas fears it's just weird i don't know they're the balls that's what we always call them as kids so if you go and you buy a big pack of those it's really inexpensive it's not something that's going to cost you a lot of money go buy a pack of all the same color or you can even if you have some that maybe aren't the color that you want take them out in the backyard and i don't know it's like i can see right just what is she gonna say i'm not gonna kill them destroy them just forget a spray paint kill the spheres we're going to spray paint them spray paint spray paint what you already have you did a diy on that last year i think i did you like poured some glue in them or something it did glitter and other kind of stuff there's so many ways to get those colors that you maybe don't see anywhere else if you just play with it i think it's fun too to match your ribbon to the ornaments they don't just match perfectly you just have like your palette i always say a color palette because yeah otherwise if you want everything in one color first of all it'll stress you out trying to find the exact color and second of all it's gonna look really flat so a color palette that really looks nice with everything that you have works well with maybe some cushions or maybe you switch out your cushions this time of year i love going to places like amazon and h m and finding some pillow covers and just switching out what you have matching the ribbons i shop a lot i've already shopped a lot on amazon this year for beautiful ribbons and wrapping paper and you can just kind of create this little cohesive color palette that is breathtaking and it really doesn't cost you hardly anything and it sounds limiting but what it actually does it gives you unbelievable amount of freedom because you literally have your colors and you're just you just look at stuff you're like if it's not on this palette i'm not gonna use it so it actually i think it makes life a lot easier it does actually sometimes i'm like no i'm in the store and i'm like that's cute but i don't need that i think i don't i agree that does actually help yeah see you're saving us money i'm saving this money i'm saving money you're spending it let me remind you again we're doing this video because you wanted our help you asked for this you asked for this one okay oh louie's like what's she doing i know he loves it when she has the evil laugh poor doggy hi baby did you hear my evil laugh it's like i love the evil thing you're naked where's your christmas sweater it's like i'm ashamed i'm naked hi i think that a lot of people end up using way too much faux greenery i think that it just looks bo yeah it really does show it i think that it just ends up looking just kind of fake and there's just something it just doesn't feel authentic and i think for us because he has a pine allergy we all people understand that sometimes oh yeah you just need some faux greenery in your house and sometimes it is a challenge to find something really amazing now we've ordered some stuff from terrain yes which is also in partnership with anthropology so i will leave you links below to the stuff that we have found we have found some amazing trees and greenery this year yeah and you guys keep asking for it if you've watched the gift guides i'm getting literally comment after comment where'd you get the faux greenery from because it looks amazing we get it we decorate early a lot of you decorate earlier and you don't want it to be a fire hazard by the mid part of november yes so we understand that but there are some fun ways i think you can definitely buy really nice foe which doesn't look as faux yeah definitely check back from our videos from last year because even the year before i do a lot i've done a lot of videos in the past about how to use faux and then add in some live greenery different ways to jazz it up because we'll be talking about that more in the coming days but even if you do have a little bit of faux i think you can buy some really really nice faux greenery these days but you can also jazz up what you have and make it look even better i think another big mistake is not layering on the cozy factor i think that that's really important i feel like people go one of two directions it's either really really sloppy and i gave up and there's just like fuzzy blankets everywhere and you're just like oh god i don't know this is too comfortable for me i need some structure somewhere here or it's just cold and stiff and there's like nothing that really warms up the space and makes it feel inviting i think there's somewhere in the middle which is where we try to land all the time where it feels approachable it feels festive but it also feels cozy because this is where like even here we always have extra blankets and things it's a good time of year to add a basket and some really cozy blankets so that you can cozy up on the sofa and watch all your favorite movies it's really important to have that cozy factor so we had always a lot of blankets we had a lot of candles a lot i feel like ever since living in scandinavia we've always done more candles than ever before and i think you can dim the lights and there's just all those kinds of things that create ambiance and i think that that's basically free you probably already have some candles in your house you probably already have some blankets but you really just want to bring that sort of ambiance into your space instead of like decor and decor santa body pillows and onesies i don't know it's just not our face the kids love them though honestly oh my god this is the one of the biggest mistakes i cannot believe i didn't put this earlier this is a huge mistake and it is free to fix okay it's huge it's huge i'm not kidding i'm not fronting it's big what what is it so many people do not realize that you can move your furniture no you cannot once you place furniture in a home until the day you die it stays there it does not and especially in our house i mean i know every stuff has wheels on it guys i install wheels on every piece of furniture they're on roombas they just move themselves around okay that's like not true but yeah seriously though you do not have to have the same room layout a lot of times people just literally leave their furniture wherever it was and just stick the tree in and we went to someone's house recently and the tree was there so i'm like on the couch like this because the tree is hanging over the couch and i'm like move the couch you're okay it's okay you can move it back you got like sap on my face from the limb and it's like move the tree move something so seriously think about your roommate layout because we always change the room layout for the holidays we the the room shifts around things leave the room things come into the room we think about the fact that we're going to have more people in the house than normal so we might bring in some extra chairs that jack is putting together right now right now as soon as this video is over so but part of that part of that comes from pre-planning like we know it's like we're going to start decorating today most likely and we know we've already gone on to the next one and not pre-planning is one of the biggest mistakes that people make so you just segued us perfectly yeah because i think the plan helps you understand what to do with the furniture because we know which room we're going to open presents in one of the things that her family brought into my life is stockings that are the size of small trucks you plan things out yes and then you're like we're gonna need more room to sit here yes we're gonna need more chairs we're gonna need to lay this room out a little differently so we do a lot of free planning so we're kind of mushing these two together but pre-planning out the room the way that it's laid out pre-planning you really pre-planning goes into a lot more than just the room design i think that there's a lot of panic buying at the end so a couple people were like oh you have christmas in your house already and we're like christmas was here before halloween ended yeah we pulled the christmas out for the halloween photos yes we actually really did okay so we are a little bit further ahead than most people because we want to get ideas out to you guys early enough for you to be able to enjoy them and to be able to utilize them this year but yeah i mean we we plan pretty far in advance because we know that things are going to sell out we know that things are i don't want to only be able to purchase what's available at my local store i may need to order some stuff i'm going to order some stuff and if i can't find what i want i'm probably going to diy it so a lot of that comes in from planning and having an idea of what i really want and just really enjoying executing that full design i think another big mistake that people make is that they don't empty the room emptying your room completely is one of the best things you can do for yourself because you need to feel the space you'll get new ideas from it as you're shifting things around and getting it all prepped for the season i do think that by clearing everything out it gives you the space to see the architecture of your room to understand what you're working with and to envision something new for your space that i know that a lot will come back in yeah but i think then you can see how to mix it together a little bit better so that you feel like okay i don't i don't want the walls to feel like they're coming in on me at the holidays i don't i don't like that feeling so that's a personal decor decision i think that it i think it actually is really helpful i feel like i'm going below the belt again and people are gonna be so mad at me they're gonna be so mad at me but you're so cute it's hard to be mad at you it's easy to be mad at me okay then you say it this one is blood i don't see if louie will say it okay go for it some of you are going to throw plastic balls at me in a minute from your tree this next one is not investing in nice things we're just gonna drop the mic back i gotta go bye is that it it's totally him i'm blaming him okay but it is true i think a lot of times we get to where we we we decorate the easy way and i think that it is a little bit of a shame to only ever buy plastic ornaments because you're afraid they'll break like i was talking about earlier the the greenery that we bought this year is so much nicer than anything we've ever owned it's incredible and honestly i wish we'd done it earlier because over the years we've tried so many of the less expensive that we could have just bought the better stuff to get to start with yeah it would have been a better investment totally and i've got some other things that i've ordered from amazon so stay tuned because i'm gonna share with you my impressions of those in the coming days but i think it's important to have a like just some core items like that greenery it doesn't matter what style we ever change to it's going to come back out every single time um stockings might be something that we might change up some people are huge traditionalists if you're going to pull out the same stockings every single year you need to get something that isn't going to fall apart i think it's really important it's a really good formula to think about if you're wanting something to last over multiple years invest if you want it just for this year you know you're just like i just want a few of these whatever then you don't have to invest as much don't feel like you have to but that's one of the things we've done is we've gone with more timeless and more legacy pieces for kind of the core yeah and then we can play around with some of the other stuff and finally i think that is super important to remember the reason for the season i know that does sound a little bit cheesy but i think so often when i go over to somebody's house and i just feel like everyone is stressed out at the holidays they don't seem to be having a whole lot of fun and they're just stressed out about having people in their home they're stressed out about the decor and getting it perfect and everything has to be just right and i think the most important thing is to remember that this time of year for some of you you're not even going to celebrate christmas i mean we've lived we lived in in morocco and they didn't celebrate christmas there and i think for us it gave us a really big perspective on the season itself and what's really important about it and from that point forward for us we just realized it's about family time it's about being together for us the being home i'm gonna get all teary-eyed and stuff oh my gosh i can't even like this time of year the most important thing isn't that the decor is perfect but that it's perfect for you and it's for your life and it's for your family and it's something that should enhance your life it shouldn't be stressful you can throw a party we could throw a party in five minutes we can literally open the door in five minutes and pull out some little cheeses and some crackers and lay something out and entertain yeah and and the reason that i've gotten to this point is it's like it's not important that it's perfect do i enjoy fussing over all the details i do i love planning out the tree and and moving the furniture and getting it all prepped but at the end of the day the most important thing is that we're trying to work towards an experience for ourselves and for our family yeah and ultimately when things aren't perfect we don't care if things get spilled if an ornament gets broken it doesn't matter because we're here and we're together and that's a precious thing so yeah these nine tips and this one the tenth these tips are really just meant to help you create your ideal christmas like that's really that's what we do is simply we think through what do we want that morning to feel like when the kids come running down the stairs what do we want it to feel like when your parents pull up that day for for this you know brunch and christmas presents in the afternoon and stuff like that yeah and then the decor simply facilitates that so we don't take it too seriously yeah like we really really don't laying on the couch on the days before leading up and afterwards and just that sort of festive that sort of ambiance that we talked about i think that that is the most important thing and when you focus on that it'll make all your decisions so much less stressful and you should be able to enjoy your home i can't wait i know i can't wait what a gift i think it's amazing so um yeah we're gonna finish off our little coffees here and uh jack's gonna go find his santa hat and we are legit gonna start decorating our home and getting it ready yeah i can't wait definitely create that moment yeah so make sure you hit subscribe we're going to have a full home tour coming up we're working on each of the kids rooms and the full house yeah and if you need more gift ideas look down below you'll see a link to our gift guide playlist that just came out over the last few days we have gift guides for every single thing you can think of luxury budget him her the whole thing so make sure you check those out as well also we'll also leave a link to our amazon store because a lot of you were saying that a lot of the stuff had sold out so we have links to our amazon store and ipin constantly to pinterest so i'm going to leave links for both of those places because those are two easy places that you could also shop if you find that some of the stuff is sold out that way there's plenty of choices and i have been addicted amazon store has gotten big it has i'm like i gotta stop but i'm like oh just a couple more yeah so click down below and you will have so much fun yes so thank you guys so much for stopping in and we will see in the next one cheers cheers over the years i've i guess louie agrees i guess so i got 42 wreaths and 17 000 likes so cute christmas i need some helpers i really need some helpers we'll just gonna keep our kids out of school for illness yes we're not feeling doing well we're not really doing that they smell like faux pine i don't know but we are not actually doing that we really are kidding we're seriously actually kidding we really are kidding take that very seriously they actually were sick yesterday they're really gonna be sick tomorrow when the boxes come up for the world series parade he's actually trying to push he's trying to push me off the couch the dog is trying to kill me on live video he's like you are in my way he's like i don't like you oh my god that's the most evil look he's ever given me i'm just kidding here you've just been laughing you\n"