Happy decorating time, dear friends, and welcome to this month’s Christmas Stocking challenge! Our friend and hostess Cindy from County Road 407 has chosen a carol-worthy image as our inspiration this month. Come along as we share our festive seasonal stocking ideas with you…
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My name is Barbara, if this is your first time coming over from Rachel at The Ponds Farmhouse to visit my little corner, French Ethereal. Welcome!! Didn’t you love how Raquel decorated with her stockings with pinecones? She has such decorating flair, especially during the holiday season…
I am really happy you stopped by today, and I hope you enjoy this post and many more! A quick shameless plug, if you like what you see here, won’t you consider subscribing? I try to post just twice a week, and one of those posts is a link party called Share Your Style. Thank you, and let’s continue…
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Red, white & green inspired theme
This festive mantel festooned with colorful cranberry baubles galore is the creation of Heidi Parson from Home by Heidi. She augmented her usual all-white decor bringing in bright pops of red and green.
The chunky look of the red ornament garland mixed with the green fir boughs tucked in and around really complements the textures of each white stocking dangling below.
Heidi has also tied lengths of ribbon and jingle bells to several of the stockings for added interest.
Really fun!
This post is the perfect challenge to get into the Christmas decorating spirit!
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Traditional red, green and gold
This first styling features these beautiful gilded angels up on our fireplace mantel which I found years ago, perhaps at JC Penny or Macy’s. They embody my love of French Country style and all things French!
I went traditional all the way with a similar look to our inspiration photo ~ having the stockings complement the mantel decorations above with their cheery red and French Country toile ~ and by using them the usual way we think of using stockings in our decor just hanging from the mantel.
Bright pops of red and green feature with faux pine boughs and red berry picks along with a couple of country-style bows. Very ethereal and very me!
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Queue the Nutcracker theme
Our second stocking idea is found on our library table where I’ve brought out a collection of nutcrackers, some inherited from my mother & father. Here I’ve placed Mr. Ethereal’s and my stockings in front of them. Our son and daughter have their matching LL Bean stockings at their respective homes and Peter’s has a large nutcracker on his. These were given to us by one of my younger brother’s and his wife one Christmas when all of our kids were young.
One of our family traditions is that each holiday season I would buy a new ornament for our kids and tie them onto either the kids’ stockings or onto one of their gift packages. We started this when they were really little ~ it was something my mother did for all four of us when I was growing up ~ and it is a tradition we continue each year.
Our son went off to college still liking nutcrackers, and the little blue and red soldier mid-photograph above is a twin to one he received while at school.
This tradition of giving an ornament now extends to our grandson as he opens a package each year topped from Grammy and Grampa with a bright and shiny new bauble! He gets to help his daddy decorate their Christmas tree with all of Peter’s childhood ornaments plus all of their new ones. 😉
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A Jolly Cocoa Bar
A few of years ago, our Pinterest Challenge featured a hot cocoa bar, and this gave me the idea for today’s holiday stocking cocoa bar vignette…
For our final stocking vignetter, I chose a pink theme pulling out an antique hot chocolate pot from my teapot stash. I paired it with a collection of Christmas mugs, a little snowflake glass filled with marshmallows and bits of chocolate, finishing with an adorable gingerbread spoon for stirring in one of the mugs!
This was also a perfect time to pull out my pink Shabby Chic Santa and pair it with a soft pink Shabby Chic stocking found at Target a few years ago. It features dainty pink roses.
A sparkly Walmart gingerbread baker (not sponsored, just cute!) found this season tucks under the stocking’s brim completing this cocoa bar. The stocking itself holds bars of chocolate for dunking in our hot cocoa mugs for extra chocolatey goodness, yum!!!
***Wish y’all were here to have some! :)’
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Just a few final thoughts
And those are just a few ways to use stockings to spice up your holiday displays… 🙂
Let me know in the comments below, how do you like to use your stockings?
Thank you again for visiting today! Up next, our friend Diane from South House Designs shares an amazing stocking idea! You’ll find links to everyone on today’s holiday stocking tour listed just below.
Enjoy!
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Joyeux Noel, mes amis,
