When I finally got around to counting yesterday, I realized that 26 is how many trees I made, bought and/or decorated this year for Christmas.  I’ll explain…

For my Christmas decor this year, I was inspired by this blog post to make mini Christmas trees by covering cones made from cereal boxes in various materials.  So back at the beginning of November, I started saving cereal boxes and by the end of the month I had made a little forest of twenty-one trees.  Nine went on the mantle:

The trees on the left include my favorite, aka the large white felt triangle tree, as well as the raffia, silver garland and book page trees.  I thought my thrift store reindeer looked just smashing perched up next to the felt tree.

The pinecones, ribbons and books I already had and I mixed them in on the right side with the feather, stick, BBQ wood chip, saran wrap and silver garland trees.  I tell you, once I got started making trees, I was looking at everything inside and outside my house thinking, “I could totally make a tree out of that!”

My favorite part of the mantle though is the center with my beloved nativity and my first ever attempt at chalkboard art.

The Christmas tree parade continues on the console table behind the sofa.  I give you the: thrift store garland, burlap, blue glass (didn’t make that one), taupe felt and beaded garland trees:

It was Peter’s idea to use pictures of Christmas trees past to decorate the table.  Perfect!

Moving onto the dining room, where seven more trees are located…

I stuck with my usual teal, silver and white color scheme for the centerpiece, so was able to use decorations that I’ve used in years past, but then added in a matching pair of teal ribbon trees.

So the grand total is nine trees on the mantle, one freshly cut balsam in the corner, five trees on the console table, seven in the dining room, and then I put one mini tree on a shelf in Alethea’s room and just for fun the girls and I went to Target and bought plastic pink, purple and teal ornaments and we put up the little artificial tree Peter and I used when we lived in an apartment.  The girls love having their own little tree to decorate (and undecorate… Alethea spent several nights sleeping with all the ornaments in her bed).

So that makes 23.  The other tree trees?  Oh, those are a Christmas surprise, but I’ll give you a hint….

Operation Playroom is still in process and Sharpie markers may or may not be involved.