Holiday Traditions | #BestDressedHome

Do you have holiday traditions? Ever since I was a little girl one of our biggest (and my favorite) traditions has always been decorating our Christmas tree. When I was younger the tree was always real and had bright colorful lights on it and ornaments that my younger brother and I had made by hand. As I got older and married my husband, we wanted to start traditions of our own. Each year because a different ‘theme’ when it came time to decorate the tree. It’s been classic, vintage, cartoon-ish and this year we are going with colorful. Everyone know I has their own very unique way of decorating for the holidays, Kmart and Sears recently conducted a survey and found that, 41 percent of Americans defined their signature design as “classic,” followed by “colorful” (37 percent) and “vintage” (12 percent). Which are you? I’m definitely with the more than half of the participants who felt the most essential decorations for the holidays was the Christmas tree. Like I said, it’s my favorite part.

We live in a small apartment so a huge tree isn’t in the cards for us, we’ve tried it and it just doesn’t work out. So we decided to go with a smaller, pre-lit tree from Kmart. Since we were getting a smaller tree we decided to buy all new ornaments, in much smaller sizes so they wouldn’t topple our tree over, our cats do that on their own.  From trees and ornaments to wreaths and garlands, Sandra Lee and Jaclyn Smith have two fabulous holiday décor collections that will bring style to your home. I instantly feel in love with the Sandra Lee collection of ornaments. So many options and they really allowed my creativity to take over. We chose to go with pink, blue, and silver for our main theme. Then of course some glitter, gold, and the traditional red and greens for our accent colors and our personal ornaments to give it that special touch.

Of course as Philadelphians we certainly could not have a Christmas tree without supporting our favorite sports teams. This little tradition is one that both my husband and I had as children and we still carry with us each year. I loved that Kmart had a selection of local ornaments that we could choose from. We usually decorate the first weekend in December, did you know that  1 in 4 Americans will begin to deck the halls one month before the holiday? When do you all start decorating for Christmas?

You can create a miniature Christmas village in your home with collections from Lemax, Department 56 and Coventry Cove. I was instantly head over heels with this cute snowman nutcracker the second I saw it. A tradition I have always wanted to start was collecting nutcrackers, and this is our first so I am super excited about this guy!

Is he not the cutest little guy? I just love him.  A little frosty the snowman while decorating the tree never hurt anyone, am I right? Nearly 25 percent of Americans choose decorating as their favorite holiday activity, with listening to Christmas music and shopping as other favorites. Yep, that’s totally me!

I am uber obsessed with all of the things I grabbed for our tree, it really made a difference and our whole experience was awesome.  The holidays are right around the corner, and no retailers are better prepared to help you deck the halls than Kmart. Check out some of the great items I got with my $100 gift card—what a great value!

To celebrate the uniqueness of this holiday tradition, Sears and Kmart are launching the Best Dressed Home Sweepstakes to capture how you and others across the US are decorating!

• Between 11/17-12/26, visit Best Dressed Home Sweeps and answer the poll questions and upload a photo of your home decked out for the holidays for a chance to win Shop Your Way points!
• 60 people will instantly win $50 in Shop Your Way points—you can enter daily
• 1 grand prize winner will win 1 million Shop Your Way points