Nighttime Christmas Home Tour | A Beautiful & Slow Christmas Evening

There is something so peaceful and magical about a nighttime Christmas home tour: the twinkle lights glowing while the home gets ready to rest.

I love all the Christmas decoration no matter what time of day it is.

But if I have a favorite, it’s definitely in the evening, when all the big lights have been turned off and the house is glowing from the twinkle of Christmas lights.

I’m so excited to share our home on an evening as we all get ready to rest for the night.

You can watch the video on YouTube

Not that I don’t want you to stay here and read about this home tour.

But there is something special about watching the lights and the kids as we all settle in for the night.

So, for the full effect, I recommend watching the video for this week’s post in addition to reading about it.

Where I added Christmas lights to the house

Anywhere there is greenery

The Christmas tree is the most obvious and traditional place to add Christmas lights.

But they look so good wrapped around a Christmas tree that even though it’s the main place, I thought I had to mention them.

Other places are garlands, wreaths, and even just lying on the counter or in a bowl with greenery.

If I put greenery there, then it’s free game for me to add lights to it.

Christmas village

I always try to find a way to incorporate lights to the Christmas village.

This year I ran twinkle lights in and through the village, but last year I just added candles and lit them now and then.

This year the Christmas village is sitting in front of our “fireplace” which is another great option for Christmas lights.

In previous years, I’ve added Christmas light to a stack of firewood in the faux fireplace or to a stack of books I had sitting in front of it.

It feels appropriate because if it were real then the fireplace would be glowing as it burned the logs.

Nighttime Christmas Home Tour

A couple of weeks ago, I told you that we like the rhythm of doing things by candlelight in the colder months.

Doing it at Christmas time is so much more fun because we also have the glow of twinkle lights to guide us through the evening.

Nighttime Christmas Home Tour: putting the kitchen to bed & prepping for tomorrow

In the evening, before I go to sleep, I like to “put the kitchen to bed”.

It gives me peace knowing that the kitchen is ready for another day.

Something about dishes piled high is so stressful to me.

Another thing I like to do in the evening is take care of my sourdough starter.

Sometimes that means feeding the starter so I can make something in the morning, and other times it means making something in the evening to rise while we sleep.

This particular evening I decided to practice a new cinnamon roll recipe.

On Christmas morning I always makes cinnamon rolls.

I used to bake the Pillsbury version, but now that I have a sourdough obsession, I’m trying to find a recipe that meets all my cinnamon roll requirements.

Every time I make them, my family is happy, but I keep finding something else to tweak haha!

I find so much joy and satisfaction in turning a recipe into my own.

An experiment that is sometimes disastrous, but mostly beautiful.

Nighttime Christmas Home Tour: kids running around getting ready for bed

The sounds that I get to hear as my children go running through the kitchen to get ready for bed is something I know I will miss someday.

When I think about it, I ask God to not let me forget it.

Don’t let me forget the pitter-patter across the hardwood floors and the laughter as they race to see who can finish first.

I’ve been seeing all these videos of people saying the magic of Christmas always came from mom.

I’m not going to sit here and tell you that’s false.

I like to believe that my girls will look back and appreciate the little things I did.

But I will say that at my house, my girls splash magic everywhere they go.

They remind me of the things that I can forget when I get overwhelmed with “creating magic”.

They see the regular and everyday things as magic, which makes my job so much easier.

Nighttime Christmas Home Tour: settling into the living room to read together

After I finish up in the kitchen and walk into the living room with everyone else, we start family reading time.

This is something that we’ve done since our oldest was born.

We brought her home from the hospital and almost immediately we started reading to her before bedtime.

(Although, she was not a great sleeper, so it wasn’t actually bedtime for anybody haha!)

It’s one of our favorite parts of the day.

Sometimes, we read a story like Narnia or Little House on the Prairie, and other times we let the girls read a book of their choice to us.

It’s been so fun watching this time transform from board books, to picture books, to chapter books, and now to our babies reading to us.

Nighttime Christmas Home Tour: Goodnight!

Now that the tour is over I want to make a point to say that this whole evening was amazing.

But it’s not the magic of Christmas that made this evening so special.

Honestly, this is our favorite bedtime rhythm all winter long.

I hope that when the girls get older and think back on their childhood, that at least one of them remembers snuggling on the couch by candlelight before bed.

It’s not this monumental thing.

It’s small.

But, I believe that it’s the small everyday things, done with great love, that have the lasting impacts we long for as parents.

I hope you have a Merry Christmas and can soak up all the magic from those in your family.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

More Cottage Christmas Inspiration

Cottage Christmas: Living Room Tour

Cottage Christmas: Kitchen & Dining Tour

Pin for Later!

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Have a great week! XoXo

Open Your Doors,
Aliya

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