CHRISTMAS DECORATING: EXPECTATION VS REALITY

Its mid-December and everyone is counting days till Christmas! I am sure all of you have finished decking your halls. I had meant this post go live in the first week of December, but it got delayed. What didn't get delayed though, was my plan for decking my halls. We usually decorate our home for Christmas, just after Thanksgiving, and were able to accomplish that. But when it came to documenting it all, that's where the deadline flew out of the window. Better late than never, right.
So when it comes to decorating, there's always a clash of expectation versus reality. What you want to do, and what you finally land up doing?

Let's start with my list of expectations first:

I(f things had been normal at our end(read: no fight with Cancer), I would have wanted to change our Christmas tree to a flocked one. I and our daughter have had that on our wishlist.
Change up the color scheme of our decorations from red, green and gold, to something more whimsical, maybe. I was thinking of peacocks and jewel tones associated with it.
Maybe even going to a Christmas Tree Farm, and get a fresh tree, versus an artificial one.
Have holiday decor in all of the rooms in our house. At least a touch of holiday decor.
Maybe add a Second Tree!
Matching holiday Pjs(though its technically not home decor). Followed by 50 attempts to get cute photos with the camera on a tripod and timer. Did I mention trying to convince both human and furry kids to stay still and maybe look at the camera? Struggles of a mom's life, I tell you.
Make Mulled Wine and enjoy it too.
Load the refrigerator with EggNog, for the Holiday parties.
Get Christmas Crackers before they are sold out everywhere.

Now here's a look at reality:

The tree and the halls were decked on December 1ts, but didn't manage to blog about them, till now.
Didn't manage to shop for ornaments in a different color scheme. So it was back to red, gold and green, for another year. Switched up things a bit though, while staying in the color scheme. I tried my hand at decorating with gold Deco Mesh and I am loving it. Got a bunch of larger ornaments. The tree that we use is more than 5 years old and is starting to get sparse in some places. But I fluff it like there's no tomorrow. The deco mesh and larger ornaments were a good idea in hiding gaps. Another hack that I love, is to add green ornaments inside the tree, which also cheat the eye, into hiding gaps. Evert year I change up, what I use as a Christmas tree topper. This year, I used a bunch of gold and red picks/sprays. I love using sprays/picks throughout the tree, in general.
I didn't manage to go and visit a Christmas tree farm. Cancer takes its toll, and its a slow and steady pace to get back to normal life and activities.
We have an open-concept floor plan, so I made sure that we had holiday decor in the various parts of the living floor, to tie it all in. The tree beside our fireplace and the mantle are also decked up. We have the same arrangement of pine cones and candles on the center table, as I had for Thanksgiving. For our formal dining table, we have a smaller tree and the quintessential red truck, carrying a fresh-cut tree. We decked up the hutch behind the dining table with bottle brush trees of varying sizes, to give it that whimsical, woodsy feel. The kitchen table has a silver deer, with a couple of bottle brush trees. The silver goes well with the stainless steel appliances of the kitchen, yet ties in the holiday decor.
No mulled wine or egg nog yet, but we still have time.
No Christmas crackers yet.