Holiday at the McGee Home - Tips for Seasonal Decor Updates

I think that I can pull really hard or have Sid take a saw and crack it open and then we can break it open. I don't know if I can do it. Uh Sid, I need your help. Okay. Here we go. So pretty. We're styling my home for the holidays in a very short amount of time so the Studio McGee styling team is here and probably at some point the video crew will be helping as well because we are shooting everything tomorrow and we've got the whole house to decorate. All right. So we're going to do the tree in the corner like we always do. And then, you know, I'm really into these deep red bows right now. I found the ribbon and then one of the product images had these really beautiful antique taper candle holders. And so I want to do bows on all of these. We'll maybe need to scoot it over so we can see the TV a little bit. You know, I got to watch my Great British Baking Show. Then wrap these and do these really beautiful big wide bows like this. And then we'll do the garland. All the stockings all on one side? Well I think with these on this side it would be nice to balance them and kind of shift my stockings probably over just, I don't know, maybe we play with it. I mean it could be cute kind of like layered tightly. Yeah. I mean that's cute. And then this over here. Yeah. I think that looks good. Yeah. Yeah. Okay so we've got our work cut out for us to just finish the one room and then we've got to do the rest, right? Typically when I swag I want the points to be lower than the top. This ends up lower. You're essentially looking at this. Oh yeah. And does that look pretty? Yeah that's great. I mean I think that looks better. I like it. Yeah. Okay so we're talking about doing these really close together so we've got to figure out how to. And then do we kind of put them? It's either we do that or we kind of tuck them underneath. That looks pretty. You're still getting a little bit of swag and I can hide all of the stockings under. Okay deal. Okay. Should I go ahead and set up the big tree? You ready for that? This might need two people. I'm not sure if I can. Oh my gosh. I really appreciate that someone put it on the like the setting for the. That's my favorite. My kids will go in and change it every single night and then in the morning I just change it back and then by night they've gone back to the crazy. So last year I did garland around this opening here and it was really beautiful but when we were filming an Around the Table episode recently we styled with garland around this doorway leading into my mudroom with these little orange slices and I just loved it so much I thought it would be a fun switch up. So we're doing garland here and then also on the mudroom door so you get this effect when you stand back of the repeated garlands. Okay so we're oranges, oranges, oranges, no oranges. I think when we do the porch on the columns I want to attempt to see if Sid can do this swag thing on the front and then my plan is to do the potted trees and the lanterns and think that then that's it on the entry. You guys could have carried these. You could have done the camera and this. Are you gonna get rid of your hiccups? I am not a fish. Our kids tell us to say I am not a fish and that's supposed to get rid of your hiccups. I don't think it works. Okay so are you ready for this? Yeah. So okay. Wait what though? We're going garlands. Hold on. Garland wrapped around each post. Like we did last year? Yes except for you know in our living room on the fireplace right now how the we've got a swag that comes to a point. It's droopy. It's not droopy. With a point. It droops a little. You're hoping to do a swoop. I want a swoop from here to here and then for that swoop to connect to the inside post and then go down and then another set. Oh you want double barrel? Yeah. On both. Swoop. There it is. You get to work. Oh come on. I don't know if that's gonna work. Feeling good about this one? Okay eight feet wide so four feet on center. I got it. Oh Santa Claus is coming to town. Thanks. There you go. I want you to pull that around. Oh no I don't want that. Okay it's a work in progress okay. Keep going. Yep that's perfect and I think that that will be our last one. Thank you. Okay so I'm going to hand you this and this goes between the jingles. What does that mean though in between the jingles? Like this. You know it's draped between the two rows of jingles. Jingle bells. Jingle bells. I think we need to go higher. We're gonna cross we're gonna cross jingles though. I know I'm trying to get it above that. What? He has great balance and ability and I just stumble over my own feet so. I think if you just loosely kind of bring that up to the very very top. Oh these are good ones. Yeah there are new ones with the cute gold clips. These candles are hot to go. You know? Okay I think that's looking good. This is cool. Yeah. You can still see the Great British Baking Show. That's what I said. Oh really? I said oh I can still watch the Great British Baking Show it's the only show I watch. There's a holiday edition coming out soon. Friday nights just testing recipes and watching my favorite people. Oh my gosh. How'd I do? You know it's really good. Now the ribbon got blown. Well it's okay. Oh there we go. That's better. Looks really good. It's really really cold outside. Can we go in? Okay I want to take you to the craft room because there's a surprise in there. Oh okay like for me? No well kind of but I mean you'll see. It's fun. Brought back the Christmas tree in the craft room this year. Your childhood. This is the fun tree. Sid came with two childhood ornaments. The can. Decorated coke can. Look at that thing. So that's always on the tree. Where's the gingerbread? This is the one. Merry Christmas 1990. There's one of you and me. This one? From a long time ago. That one. In 2008. That was a long time ago. Our kids have made lots of ornaments. I'm actually excited to have the fun tree in the craft room because the kids have already started making snowflakes and ornaments and they can just continue to add to the tree. It turned out cute. We've got their little advent calendar here and I think really I'd say this is a surprise for you but it's going to be a really good surprise for the girls when they get home from school. It looks like it's fake popcorn. It's not real. Sid just keeping me humble. I didn't have time to make the real popcorn garland okay. Okay you go back to work and I will take everyone for the rest of the tour. We already did an entire holiday shoot in July for McGee and Co. but now it's my home's turn to get decked out for the holidays. Everyone has a different take on when the ideal time to decorate is but I like to decorate right before Thanksgiving so the home is all warm and cozy and decked out for the holidays when I have guests over. In the entryway I always love to do a small Christmas tree on this vintage chest here and I fell in love with the idea of using an antique silver urn and placing a tree in it. This is from McGee and Co. and then I just found the vintage urn and then decorated it using these little mercury glass ornaments that are absolutely adorable. So I have this here. I have my bowl of ornaments which is adorable. I love these brass french horn taper candle holders here. They're a little kitschy but in a really sophisticated way and I think that that's the perfect balance for the holidays and then I finished the look off with bells hanging from the hardware here. My living room connects to the kitchen, our staircase, and our dining room and you can see all the spaces together when you're standing in our living room so it's really important to come up with a cohesive color palette. I fell in love with this deep red color this year and wanted to go big with that as an accent with a lot of bows. The very first thing that I knew I wanted was to create this candle moment with really large oversized silk bows and then it all came together from there. I wanted to go big so I doubled up the garland. I often go across and over but this year we started in the middle and then did this swag and then carried it all the way to the floor. I mean when I walk into my living room I just keep staring at it. I love this so much. We balanced out the bows on the one side with the stockings on this side. I have a new tree from McGee & Co that I am very excited about. We just launched this. It has 6,000 of these beautiful tiny warm led lights and it just has the most amazing glow day and night and I've done these clip-on candles which adds another form of light which having that glow in the holidays just feels magical. Last year I did tinsel and it was very controversial. I loved it and to this day I still love it but this year I decided to do glass icicles all over the tree and I alternated my garland types. So I did this antique gold garland here and then the sweetest jingle bell garland. Like hear that? Oh my gosh sounds like Christmas. And then I did velvet ornaments. I did two different color palettes. I did one of the warmer and the cool tone. Speaking to that beautiful antique silver that I love in the holidays, I have collected mercury glass ornaments over the years and I have a lot of them and I've loaded the tree up with those and then filled in with our more elevated personal ornaments that I collect where we travel. So you know I get one from Alice Beach and one from Blackberry Farm when we went there and I got one when we went to London and it's been really fun to reminisce about all of those locations. When I style my coffee table for the holidays, I usually keep the base of the styling pretty similar to what I have all year round and then swap a few objects. So these really pretty wood trees, these are great because they're not breakable for Margo and then over here I've actually had this vintage ginger jar since Sid and I decorated our, well I decorated our very first home together and I noticed that I was saving a lot of imagery from vintage Christmas magazines that had blue and white in the Christmas decor and so I brought that out. I love how it pairs with this really deep red tone. Every year I do garland on my stairs. This is our cedar garland. It's what coordinates with the garland that is in my kitchen. My thought process there was that I have garland in the kitchen, garland in the living room that ties together and then I broke it up with one other style at my fireplace. I would say if you're styling an open space like this, I wouldn't do more than two styles of garland in one area. I really like to style my garland so that it hangs on the floor. I love that more romantic look and then I love to finish it off with beautiful bells. I love to decorate with bells and I think there are so many different ways to incorporate them. I have them here on my garland. I love to add them to wreaths. If you have a dresser or anything with hardware that you can hang bells from, I think it adds to the vignette. I also love to just place them on a stack of books as an object. Also if you have a door handle that is not maybe your main door, it's really nice to have that little jingle when someone comes in and out of your home. I take the same approach to styling a console that I take when styling a coffee table for the holidays. So I already had the bowls and stacks of books here. I incorporated a candle that has a more holiday color to the vessel and then this really cute woven sleigh and then I love to fill a bowl with ornaments or bleached pine cones. This just happened because I placed my Christmas tree where my pedestal usually goes and we had just moved this over and it was just kind of floating out here and I realized I kind of love it here. When you walk into our home you see directly to this back area and it seemed like the perfect moment to add a little festivity to this space. This is just the right amount of decorating in my kitchen for the holidays. I love to go big with lots of holiday decor all over my house but in the kitchen I want to make sure that yes it's decorated but also I have a lot of space for cooking because I feel like I live in the kitchen during the holidays. So many cookies, so much hosting. Behind me is what I call my seasonal decorating area of my island. I think that even if your island is half this size choosing a little grouping that's a little bit off center is the perfect place to change out your seasonal vignette during the holidays to make your home feel more charming and nostalgic. Incorporate things like antique silver or little jars, vintage artwork. I've got a tray here this would look good alone or I could pile it high with cinnamon rolls. I have two garlands around my doors flanking my kitchen this year. I'm really excited about these. This is a cedar garland and then we added dried oranges. I love dried oranges. I think they're so beautiful and they add some color to your home. I loved this garland moment so much that I didn't want to just do it here but have that repeated effect on our bedroom door that leads outside. I always do a wreath above my hood and people always ask me how I hang it. I use a 3M hook and so far so good. I love our juniper berry wreath. This one actually lights up with a battery pack and I love these sweet little faux trees that we carry at McGee & Co. They look good all year round. There's this shape and then also a round topiary shape but I think that with this little tree shape you're getting a more holiday feel. In the dining room I really carried that berry red theme into this space. The nice thing about this room with the green wallpaper is that as soon as I add in reds and berry tones it feels very Christmassy and I have the dinner table all set for guests. I love this gingham tablecloth. You've seen me use this a lot because it's just so good. I love the little tassel detail around the edge. It has kind of a crochet and then a tassel which is really cute and then I've used our Leffler Randall collection plates and the placemats and napkins and that soft white with the berry tone is a really nice juxtaposition of light and dark and then I love to add in a I have our brass front horn taper candles and a really pretty low arrangement. I just can never have enough wreaths and so I did our wreath with the berries in here and the deep velvet ribbon because again bringing that deep evergreen color and the berry tones into this space in a really big way. We're all ready to settle in for the holidays and I hope this leaves you inspired with new ideas to decorate in your own home.