Making The House Ready For Christmas!

This post is sponsored by Amazon Devices. As always, all opinions are our own!

Hi friend!!

It’s our first Christmas in our new home so we knew we wanted to really dive into decorating, even if there were so many “more important” things to do around the house, like the uhhhh major renovation that’s happening. That’s the thing about decorating for the holidays though! It can honestly feel like frivolous work, but after it’s all done the mood boost is so worth it (and we’re all about a mood boost this year). Twirling around the house at night with a glass of wine, Christmas music, and the glow from holiday lights? No nothing beats that, sorry.

This is the first time we’ve ever had the space to go all out with decorating a big tree, so we had to figure out what our style was! We did some intense soul-searching and decided that, while we love being over-the-top and ~ weird ~ with decor from time to time, it would be best to go with a traditional look that felt like a familiar warm hug. We knew we wanted to stick to our old faithful combo of old & new, so we grabbed some classic old-school decorations but made them Alexa-enabled with our Amazon Smart Plug for the added fun and ease of just shouting out “Alexa, merry Christmas!” and, thanks to the Alexa Routine we set up, having all of our decor come to life––lights on, music, everything!

We picked out a set of new ornaments to complement our existing vintage and family pieces that feel so personal––again with the old and new style we love so much. We used faux greenery for the tree and mantel garland that we can keep forever, but added in real evergreen pieces to give it a little extra oomph and life. It’s all about balance!

We’ve been talking a lot about the traditions we want to start, like we’ve decided that the official Christmas decorating day in our home will now be the Sunday after Thanksgiving––which is the same day we have Matt’s turkey andouille gumbo for dinner every year. We’ve been playing around with the “Days Until” Alexa Blueprint Skill, so in November we set up a countdown to our decorating & gumbo night, and now that that’s come and gone, we set one up for Christmas Day!

If you want to use our Holiday Routine, you can open it right here on your mobile device. All we do is say “Alexa, merry Christmas!” and Alexa says “Ho Ho Ho,” on our Amazon Echo Show, the holiday lights we have plugged into our Amazon Smart Plug pop on, and our favorite holiday Christmas special (The Kacey Musgraves Christmas Show duh!!) starts up via our Fire TV Stick. It’s very sweet! You could also create your own Alexa Routine and add favorites like music, or have the Echo Show pull up the Santa Tracker Skill for your kids!

However you’re decorating and celebrating this year, we hope you have a very happy holiday season, even if it looks a little different than usual.

xoxo Beau & Matt