Gingerbread Kitchen

Remember when you and your young hubby were crammed in a tiny one bedroom basement apartment and even 1 box filled with holiday decorations just seemed to overpower the tiny space? I do. Gradually through the years, we have moved to slightly larger apartments, to a small house and now we are in a medium sized house. As the size of our home has grown, so has the size and quantity of my holiday decoration boxes :) We had only been in our house a few months last Christmas, so I didn't have enough decorations to fill all of the spaces last year. I added a few and brainstormed for ideas of what I could do to all of the remaining spaces. I have several nativities and a snowman theme throughout most of our main living areas. However, I thought it could be really fun to have a different theme in the kitchen. I had seen a gingerbread theme in someone else's kitchen (my mom's) and I decided to copy it for this year. When I mentioned my idea to Mom, she decided to give me most of her gingerbread stuff. She has since moved on to a different theme and her stuff was just collecting dust in a box in the attic. I graciously accepted! Some of the figures I place on my countertop and some I placed in the space above the cupboards. As you can see, I need to add a little bit more. I have some gingerbread craft ideas that I hope to make over the next couple weeks to add to the collection. Most likely, it will take me 2 or 3 Christmas seasons to finish collecting gingerbread decorations for the kitchen. It should be fun!

I have a small, slender tree that I can put in a corner of my kitchen. My mom has one too, and she also gave me her gingerbread ornaments. Many I could simply hang on the tree. She did give me some cookie cutter ornaments that I modified. She uses the traditional reds and greens in her holiday decorations. However, I have decorated my house in the really bright red and lime greens that are popular right now. So I added brightly colored ribbon and bright red and green picks to the cookie cutters so that they tie in better with my color scheme.
My mom also had these really cute tiny gingerbread men ornaments meant for a miniature tree that she had glued to ribbons and used on her slim tree. However, my tree is smaller than my mom's and with all the other gingerbread ornaments and cookie cutters it was already too full. So, I glued ribbons that matched the cookie cutter ornaments to the mini ornaments making a loop. Then I strung these up on the curtain rods in the kitchen windows for a little window decoration.

Kind of a fun effect and it helps spread the gingerbread theme throughout the kitchen.

I just think this little tree is darling, and it is so fun to have so many Christmas decorations in my kitchen. I spend enough time there cooking and doing dishes that it is really nice to have it decorated along with the rest of the house!