Around the house: Holiday home tour

I love to see how other people decorate their homes for the holidays. Now it's my turn to share some of our holiday cheer with you. You can start with the porch tour I posted a few weeks ago.

I found the inspiration here for the "a thrill of hope" sign over the fireplace. We all need a serious thrill of hope for the coming year. I liked the sentiment but wanted the text in red, so I grabbed my kids' watercolors and painted a sign myself. (I won't admit how many attempts it took to get decent version.) Then I found an old frame and sprayed it gold with Valspar metallic spray paint. (Then I spray painted a few more things around the house. And a few more.)

This year I relegated our Christmas tree to the back of the dining room to keep it safe from the speed crawler. It's actually nice to have it out of the way but visible from the front windows. The photos of it crammed behind the table didn't turn out well though, so I'm just sharing a snap of our little tree out on the back porch.

Happy holidays, friends!