#BarbourHolidays Tree Decorating

For as long as I can remember, my mom has roped me into helping her decorate the Christmas tree. Normally I wouldn’t mind helping my mom (of course!), but the Christmas tree requires me to climb to the attic and stand on chairs to hang lights. It is a funny memory year after year for my mom to laugh hysterically as I’m on a chair or coming down the attic ladder with a box on top of my head. And she always lets go of said chair or ladder, so I wobble like crazy. It’s a miracle I haven’t fallen (yet).

The result is always worth the effort, though. It makes it even more satisfying to flip the tree lights on, dim the room, and stand back and admire our work.

Barbour asked me to partner on this post with the theme being Christmas trees! I was so excited to hop on board, but I was also a little apprehensive. This would be my first time decorating my own tree without my mom’s assistance. I spent so much time planning what I wanted it to look like. I was starting from scratch with the decorations, and it took an entire Sunday to hunt and gather items for my “woodland creatures” tree.

First up is picking out the tree. Gar and I went to a farm nearby to hunt for the perfect tree. Even though I’m a perfectionist, I actually like Christmas trees to have a little bit of character. Maybe a little lopsided or a hole somewhere or kooky branches… Those are the trees that speak to me the most!

When you step out of the car at the farm, the first thing that hits you is the evergreen scent. I especially love the way it smells when the air is extra crisp. The scent from bringing home a real tree makes the needles all over the floor well worth it, don’t you think?

I couldn’t resist wearing this red Barbour coat because I knew it would “pop” against the evergreen trees. (Not to mention that it’s warm, layers well, and is water resistant of course!)

If you’ve been reading here for a while, you know my love for any and all things fair isle. If the pattern weren’t so cute, I’d say it was a problem. This navy and red Barbour fair isle sweater rose to the top of my favorite sweaters the minute it arrived.

After we had got the tree, we went about tying it to the roof of my Subaru. Well, Garrett did the heavy lifting and I “helped” with catching the rope on the other side. Driving home was interesting; I was convinced it was going to fly off the car, but the knots prevailed!!

Garrett also set the tree up for me (and the lights… I was hopeless) so I could start decorating. I blasted a holiday playlist and got to work.

I created a little station on the coffee table with all the ornaments, grouped by “type.” I started with the big box of gold pinecone ornaments that I got and filled the entire tree as evenly as I could. Honestly, the pinecones alone looked great!

Then I added the glass bulbs before finally getting to the fun stuff: the woodland creatures!

I bought the little animals from a local nursery in Norwalk called Reynolds Farms. They each have the best personalities I swear!

I was so anxious to put the star on top so I could admire the tree from afar!

There are no words for how happy having a decorated tree in the apartment makes me. I sat on the couch staring at it for too long the first night it was up.

We had to keep the animal ornaments a little higher on the tree because the dogs think they’re toys, so don’t look too closely down there. Speaking of the pups, they wanted to get in on the #BarbourHolidays action, too.

Wearing: Brae Wax Parka Jacket (c/o; available in green here) // Mallow Knit Sweater (c/o; available in red here) // Maybole Beanie (c/o; available in blue here)

Thank you Barbour for sponsoring this post!