On my mantle – December

Greetings and welcome to the festive edition of what’s on my mantle. My house is looking quite pretty. We have strings of lights everywhere to protect us from the gloom that seems to descend by the time we get back from the school run.

As well as sharing my mantle I thought I would also write about some of our Christmas decorations.

For the first time we are experimenting with a large light feature. Yes. We have our very own reindeer. We’ve managed to position it between our wooden shutters and our huge bay window in our lounge. The children adore it and I haven’t spotted another one in our street, or even suburb. It’s from John Lewis and we’re all becoming quite fond of it.

Our Christmas tree has taken pride of place and I am quite thankful that it meant lots of the children’s clutter has been relegated to the loft for the next few weeks. Fingers crossed they’ll forget about their toys and I can sneak them to the charity shop when they’re at school. I’ve gone for a vintage look with some new John Lewis baubles and ornaments. The children chose one each this year so there’s a couple of vintage cars!

As ever, my mantle remains my sole domain and I have decorated it with some of my favourite decorations. This year I have some lovely new house-shaped tea light holders, this has definitely been a 2014 obsession – check out my Pinterest board to see!

We have Advent candles (which are never on the right day), my super large pinecone candle, a vase of vintage-style ornaments and lights and a sweet deer I picked up whilst food shopping last week. I’ve hung my Cath Kidston banner underneath but I’m not sure how long it will last, it doesn’t quite complete the look I was aiming for.

Anyway, we’ve managed to bring in lots of light so the room feels very cheery in the evenings. Perfect for cuddling up with a cup of gingerbread tea and the box of Christmas chocs.