This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of At Home for IZEA. All opinions are 100% mine.

Every year I plan to decorate my mantel and every year I end up with nothing but stockings. This year I decided to start early and plan ahead, so I started in October! The hardest thing about decorating anything in my house for Christmas is that I feel so stuck because of our Christmas tree.

When my husband and I got married we started adding UNC ornaments to our tree and before long we had tons of light blue, navy blue, and Tar Heel ornaments.

While finding blue Christmas decor is now easier than ever, years ago that was not the case. Christmas used to be all red and green, but over the years it seems like every color under the rainbow has been added. Even though I could go all out with blue, navy, and gray, I decide to break away from our tree colors this year and start decorating for Christmas based on my personal style. The mantel was the first step.

How To Decorate A Mantel For Christmas:

A few weekends ago my girls and I had our very first girls weekend. What do girls do when they have a weekend with no guys? They go shopping of course! I can't even tell you how many stores we hit that day, but I can say that we shopped from 11 am until 8 pm! That's a lot of shopping, even for me.

One of my favorite stops was at At Home. I had only ever been in the store one other time and before that I had never even heard of it. At Home already had all of their Christmas decorations out, so I knew it was the perfect time to plan our mantel. With the help of the girls, we walked down every aisle trying to figure out which of the 14 At Home Christmas Decor themes we wanted to use to decorate the mantel for Christmas. 

We all agreed that Crystal Chateau would be perfect for us because it was adorable enough to make the girls giggle with excitement and it reminded me of walking through the icy winter forest in Minnesota, and it would match well with our current (permanent) living room decor.

What I didn't know is that At Home offers 101 varieties of Christmas Trees, all of which the girls has to ooh and aah over and I even found a Tree for Me. They also had a little too much fun playing with the Christmas inflatables. We quickly discovered that At Home is the one-stop-shop to design your entire home for Christmas. Seriously, they cover every single room (yes, even the bathroom). I have never seen such a large assortment of Christmas decor under one roof. Whatever your style At Home has indoor and outdoor Christmas decor and ornaments that are perfect for you. Don't believe me? Check this out: I fell in love with the Seas & Greetings decor. Sadly only our bathroom is beach themed, and while these colors would match our already blue Christmas tree, I just wasn't sure how John would react to a sea themed Christmas. I did ask when I got home, and he loved it, so I'm sure we'll be heading back soon. My late mother-in-law would have loved this theme. She adored the ocean. I'm pretty sure we spent over 3 hours browsing everything from Christmas ornaments to dinnerware. Anna was set on getting a nutcracker (it was on her birthday list), and they had tons to choose from. She wanted a pink one, and guess what... they had one. Let's get back to the mantel shall we? I started by allowing the girls to choose their favorite woodland creature. Lexi chose the deer, and Anna couldn't resist the bushy-tailed squirrel. Then I chose some of my own favorite pieces. I have always been a fan of bird cages. I even considered getting one tattooed on my wrist (still thinking that one over), so I knew I had to have the bird cage. When I saw the reindeer, I couldn't pass him up either. I honestly could have purchased the entire collection. Unfortunately, we wouldn't have been able to watch TV if I would have bought every piece that "spoke" to me! I am usually not a fan of Christmas trees as decor. I don't know if it's because they seem so traditional, and I feel like one tree is enough or if I just find them annoying, but when I saw these I had a change of heart. They are rustic, yet covered in glitter. They are basically everything I love about winter. When I thought we were finally done and had everything we needed, I spotted this set of logs and knew I had to have them. I knew I wouldn't be able to put anything on the TV stand that blocked the screen but wouldn't ya know, these were just small enough to go below the TV and complete our look. The logs, much like everything else were perfect! Our Tips:  Shop with your family and choose a theme together. Consider your mantel size and what will fit (don't block the TV). Purchase items that work well together. Shop early, so you have plenty of Christmas decor to choose from. What do you think of our first Christmas mantel? Which At Home Christmas theme would you choose?