Merry and Bright Holiday Home Tour {part 1}

As always, I am thrilled to be part of the Merry & Bright Holiday Home Tour hosted by Shelly of Confetti Style.  If this is your first time here at Positively Southern, welcome! A special welcome if  you've popped over from M Jones Style.  Today I am delighted to share our home with you!  Let's start the tour in the foyer.

 As I've already mentioned in a recent post (see that here) this year it is all about color at Positively Southern. This darling little tree came into our lives late in the season last year and I do believe it was every one's fav!  We love it so much that we keep this one pretty simple with only the colored lights and candy garland.  This tree certainly brightens this spot in our home.

The garland on the stairs gets a refresh of ornaments each year along with a coordinating ribbon.  The ribbon has a bit of a copper look that flows with both the dining room and foyer.  

Our main tree has it's color back this year!  After the decision to keep the decor gold and silver last year, I truly missed using red.  This year I knew I wouldn't go that direction again, I pulled out all the red I could find!

 Notice that the tree has a few blue ornaments for an accent color.  I like to think that maybe it helps tie the blue sofa into the Christmas decor!

 The majority of ornaments on all of our trees have been collected since I was in college.  Each year I add a few new things to the trees.  The large snowflakes are from JoAnn Stores.

Santa always bring his gifts to this tree!  With the french doors, this tree can be seen from the kitchen and family room.  I adore how the glow of the tree warms the rooms up.

You won't dare want to miss what Shelly has to share over at Confetti Style!  Shelly has exquisite style and you will be filled with inspiration once you've stopped by her place!

That is it for my home this week!  I'm delighted you've stopped by.  Be sure and come back next week on Wednesday, December 5 as we share a few more spaces in our holiday home tour.  I'll be sharing my dining room and this might be the prettiest I've ever seen it!  You will not want to miss it!!  Hop on over and see the others on the tour!

Love Your Abode

Green With Decor

M Jones Style

Chic on a Shoestring Decorating

Farm House Therapy

Confetti Style

Cuban Black Beans

I interrupt all this Christmas decor to share an amazing recipe with you guys!  Black beans, are they part of your regular food repertoire?  I'll be honest and say they weren't on mine, until I had these!

Our older son is engaged to a precious girl from Miami. She has introduced us to a whole new world of food.  She is part Cuban and Colombian and brings her culture to our table every time she visits!  Andrew kept telling me we had to try these black beans boy, was he right!  They are delish!  She was gracious to prepare these and let me photograph as she went so I could share with you all.

Ingredients:
2 cans of unseasoned black beans
2 teaspoons of oregano
1 teaspoon of cumin
half of a medium onion
3 cloves of garlic
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon of sugar
1 teaspoon of vinegar
2.5 teaspoons of Adobo Seasonings
3-4 larges pieces of red and yellow bell peppers
1 packet of chicken bullion

Coat a sauce pan with olive oil.  Saute minced garlic, cumin, Adobo seasoning & oregano.  Add  onion & peppers sliced in halves. When this is lightly sauteed add the remaining ingredients.  Let this simmer for 40 minutes on low.

  Before serving we removed the peppers and chunk of onion.  Add salt to taste.

Everywhere we go we now take these black beans and everyone always wants the recipe!!!  Many thanks to my future daughter in law for sharing her family recipe!!

Feeling Blue for Christmas

Now before you start to think I'm feeling sad....I'm just feeling blue...lots and lots of blue for Christmas this year!!!  After choosing to use only silver and gold in last year's color scheme for Christmas, I knew that this year I'd go all out for color!  In fact, each space I've decorated this year is a completely different color.  I'm excited to share those spaces over the next few weeks!  Today, I'm sharing our family room that is all decked out in blue!

For this year's color scheme I drew inspiration from none other than Blue Willow.  After Christmas last year I dashed to Pier 1 and bought every blue bit of tree decor they had!  HA!!  Really I did!

The blue poinsettas are nothing short of gorgeous to me!

The family room tree typically holds our family ornaments.  Ornaments we've collected over the years that are from trips or locations we've been. 

This year a Linda from The Home I Create, posted on Instagram her tree filled with Blue Willow plates. She inspired me to do the same.  I'll now be on the hunt for Blue Willow butter pats.  I've seen plenty in the past but, saw no reason to get them...regrets, I've got a few!

The coffee table in our family room always gets lots of use, not as much as it did since John is away at college.  He will be home most of the month of December so I still needed to keep the space not super full.  The container holding ornaments is from Pottery Barn many years ago but, I see them everywhere now!

 

There is no doubt that I love this room decorated with all my most favorite colors and things. 

A Silver and Gold Christmas Tablescape

Now that Thanksgiving is behind us I am so excited to bring on Christmas!!!  Ya'll know that I love a tablescape and especially at Christmas time. This might be my all time fav Christmas tablescape ever!  I always adore mixing silver and gold pieces, so that is exactly what I did!

As I began to gather pieces from my inventory aka stash, I knew that I wanted the silver/gold magnolia placemat to be a base, but it still felt like it needed more so I added the silver and gold placemat boards that you all have seen numerous times.  I started building from that point.

Inside each box that sits on the salad plate guests will find a small treat.  These boxes are from Pier 1 and are available in silver and gold.

Our wedding china, Montclair by Lenox anchors most of my place settings this season as the Christmas tree decor doesn't lend very well to reds this year.

After much debate I made the decision to keep the place settings as a focal point and to just use my silver candle holders as the only centerpiece.

This tablescape will welcome my girlfriends early this next week!  My goal is to always make those that I'm close to feel as special as possible!