CHRISTMAS HOME TOUR | A Collected Home in Phoenix Decorated For The Holidays

This holiday season, get ready to unwrap the most magnificent holiday homes with Homeworthy's 25 Days of Christmas. For the month of December, we'll take you inside the most heartwarming houses decked out for the holidays in true festive fashion. From twinkling lights and elegantly trimmed trees to sparkling ornaments and cozy holiday charm, these homes capture the warmth, wonder, and beauty that make this season so special. So join us as Homeworthy celebrates 25 Days of Christmas. The magic starts now. Raise your glass. Cheers. Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays. You're watching Homeworthy, where we believe every home has a story. Today's Homeworthy episode is brought to you by Patio Furniture, where thoughtful design meets unmatched durability. For almost 40 years, the company has been designing and building outdoor furniture with innovative materials to ensure it stays beautiful. From ice cream spills to battling Mother Nature, Patio Furniture builds products that will exceed your expectations for years to come. Hi, Homeworthy. Welcome back. I'm Diana Elizabeth. Come on in. I'm going to show you how I decorate for Christmas. You're watching Homeworthy, where we believe every home has a story. Hi, Homeworthy. Welcome back. I'm Diana Elizabeth, and today I'm going to take you on a Christmas home tour, and I'm going to show you how I decorate and host for Christmas. You may remember this on the last tour. This is my garden room, and this is where we do all of the entertaining. So I really go all out here, and also this is a place where when my parents come out to visit for Christmas, they stay. There's a Murphy bed right behind you on the other side, and they stay in this room. But I'm going to share with you how I decorate the garden room. Let's start with the Christmas tree, of course. The first thing I want to tell you that you might not know is it is on wheels, and I call it like a Christmas tree straight jacket. So it's at the bottom, and you just pull it all the way up and store it, wheel it out, wheel it back in. But I do take off all the breakable ornaments and the ribbon, but it's worked out so well. This is our first year using it, and I have to say it saved a lot of time. So this year I did something a little bit different, and I pushed myself creatively. I try to do that every year, and I did a top hat Christmas tree topper. Usually I do a star or a ribbon, and I was at Scottsdale Marketplace, and these ladies were in their little boutique area and convinced me. I was like, I don't know if I can do it, but I love the way that it looks, and I also added some magnolia to kind of tie it in with my style. And I would say that my style for Christmas is probably traditional, but I don't really have any rules. I love Wedgwood, and I mentioned in the last episode, if you want to start a collection, tell your friends, because they will help you build that collection really quickly. And so this is what has happened with my Wedgwood ornaments. My birthday's very close to Christmas, well the month before, month of November, and so this has built up my collection really quick. And just to point out a couple special ornaments when I travel, I do pick up ornaments. Ashford Castle in Ireland, this was from Amalfi Coast just this past summer, and gifts from a friend, Fortnum and Mason in London. These snow globe ornaments, they're vintage from the 1960s from antique gatherings. These are like sunburst ornaments. I love how they just overlay on top of the tree, and these are currently at West Elm right now. And Mount Vernon, just different places throughout my travels. I thought I would try something different the past few years. I was kind of tired of wrapping presents if I'm being honest. So I found bags, and I just love that you can just put it in there and reuse it. It's great for the environment. It's also just a time saver, and just put a little tag who it's from. I mean add some tissue paper if you know you also want to do a little bit of wrapping, but they come in different patterns. You can find them on Etsy and certain boutiques, and so I really love that touch. Since we do the ornament party here, I would love to share some tips that I implement that make it unique and fun. Please feel free to take these for your next ornament party. So I'm a firstborn, so I'm also a people pleaser, and I've been to a lot of ornament exchange parties. And when they're wrapped, you never know what you're going to get. It's kind of a gamble, right? Especially when you don't know everybody. Obviously pink is not going to work in my Christmas decor, and it's kind of a bummer when you just get one right off the bat that's not going to work. So I came up with the idea of having labels, and the labels I have is neutral, red and green, colorful, and I'm just adding this this year blue and white. And so my guests would come with their wrapped ornament, place them in a certain section. So I'd probably clear this whole area off and just have these frames with the labels. And at least when you start, you know when you pick one, it's going to at least go with your color. That's like a lot better. So I've seen some friends start to do this after I did it, and I love that. And the second thing I do is instead of drawing numbers, what I would recommend if you have a party, maybe under 15 people, instead of drawing numbers, you have them fill out a personal fun fact, and they can put their name on it if you have time and you want to guess. But what I do as the hostess is I draw the first one and just randomly, and I read it out loud. And this is actually the main activity of the And we are laughing for hours. We have found out that friends sleepwalk. We found out talents of clapping with one hand, things that people have collected. It is a hoot. And so when I draw the person, they volunteer or we guess, and then they come up, they pick up their ornament, and then I hand the bowl to them, and they draw the next person. So everyone is involved. But it is the highlight of the night. And really, we have these parties just to gather. So something we added was molding the last time you guys were here. And I already had this accent wall, and I just needed molding to kind of look cohesive. So I use the same board. And we went around and just kind of really finished the room. So you might notice there's a lot of garland up and I want to give you a tip on how I make it efficient. So I bought a lot of cable clips, and I nailed them in and they're just at the top of the trim. And that way they're white, my walls are white, it just is easily concealed through the rest of the year. And I slip a zip tie through them. So it's really secure. And that's all I do. I was patting myself on the back this season when I was putting everything up. I don't think I really have a theme for Christmas. I really stick with the same traditional decor. I add a lot of pieces this year, I've added a lot of pieces, a lot of red, I've realized that red is absolutely a must have for me during Christmas. So when I look in a room, the way that I fill it is, in my mind, I ask myself, where's the red in that corner? Or if there's red, if there's an absence of red, I know that I need to fill it with something Christmas, because I don't have red in my home most of the year. These are some bows that are ready-made. I love the ready-made bows. This was a set from Frontgate. They kind of have a vintage feel, it's a velvet. I love the way that looks. Last time I asked you guys for name ideas for my little dog, my large dog, and thank you for the ideas. I picked the name, well let me first tell you, because my husband Benjamin bought this for me for my birthday, we will name him Benji, which was also my husband's nickname until he hit high school. And I put a little ribbon scarf on him and I put scarves on almost every little figurine you will see in the house. It just makes it a little playful. So this is set up this way when I have parties I'm entertaining, my parents come in and stay for about two weeks, the bed comes down, and this is the Murphy bed back here. But for now it is kind of my nutcracker bookcase. So I didn't realize I was starting a collection, another collection, until I pulled out all my nutcrackers. And some of these I've actually purchased while going to the ballet, the Nutcracker. So what I've done over the years is when I buy a new one, I write on the bottom the year and who I went with. So this was 2023 and I went with my best friend Megan. And so I just, I still need a couple more characters up there. I have room. This is the guest powder bath, which will be used often this season. And just a couple touches is having the disposable hand towels. Good old Mackenzie Childs is just so charming and cute, but decorate it just a little bit. And during the ornament party and everyone's in the garden room, I close these up and it just makes it so intimate and just so private right here. And now I'm going to go back on the other side and show you the dining room. Welcome to my dining room. I host a, now it's formal now, it wasn't formal 19 years ago, but this will be our 19th dinner. It's my, I call it my girl gang. We met through pageantry many, many years ago. We wear our pajamas. We do wear our pajamas still for a very formal setting, but the tradition was that when we were in our twenties, our Christmas party would go until 2am. One time, I think it went till 4am. So we thought we should just be in pajamas the whole time. It does not go late anymore, but we still love the tradition of pajamas. So anyways, this is my tablescape for that upcoming 19th year together. And, uh, I would love to share some really special things on this table. I want to point out that I have faux mixed with real. And usually sometimes people don't really like faux, but we live in Phoenix. It is so dry here. If this was fresh, it'd be crisp in two weeks. And my entertaining season is about a month and a half to two months here. So that's not going to work. And it's also going to be too expensive. So I like to mix with fresh and at least you can feel like it's more budget friendly to just do two bouquets. And it's also height. These centerpieces are from William Sonoma, as well as most of the tablescape. My favorite are these etched rose glasses, goblets. I purchased them at an estate sale. The woman I heard was, I want to say 102. She was definitely over a hundred. She was still alive. She was just downsizing. It's probably going to be me one day. These knives I bought at the French market from the guy who carved them. And it's just such a sweet memory to bring these out. We still love the chairs that roll. These are from Ballard designs with a slip cover on them. And this year I decided that it would be great to have plates that weren't really Christmas specific and they're red. This is the Aaron Lauder collaboration with William Sonoma. I could use this for Valentine's day, a garden party. I just think, well, we let, we know I love red during Christmas. So this still also works and it has the green in it as well. And these napkin rings I picked up at a thrift store. I saw them in a bowl. They were pretty affordable and thought I really love them. So I went back and I bought them all. They're still there for me. There is a nutcracker candlesticks. There's a pair. And this was a recent birthday gift to me from a girlfriend of mine. And they're just so sweet. And I thought I would pair them with these crystal candlesticks from Alice Lane home. And during the holidays, I like to change out my chandelier shades. They are usually white floral. And, uh, I just love the black with the gold. It just kind of brings the light down to the table. And the gold is just such a warm hue. And during my ornament party, this is just covered in buffet style desserts and snacks. So what I added, there was a lot of things I added, but I found these recently at a thrift store as well. They have etched on their 1977 Holly ball. I believe these are vintage Reed and Barton, if that's correct. Um, and again, I just bought them all because I thought, why not? And I didn't know how I was going to decorate with them, but when I was putting together this tablescape, I thought I wanted them to be the focal point because they're just, they're vintage. They're sweet. And I love how shiny they are and they're silver plated. So I had to polish them. And this table cloth is from an estate sale. I love finding linens. I love when I go to an estate sale and I walk in, I'm like, this was a hostess and I can, uh, buy some of that retired hostess things. Now you may notice white napkins, a little dairy, depending on what you're serving. But I have a tip because I had recently had a dinner party with tomato soup and I had white napkins. And, um, after dinner, I thought to myself, why did, why did I do that? But it was a great challenge that I wanted to share this with you. So immediately I used an oxy clean. It has the nubs on it. And I, I just tackled all the stains right before I went to bed or even just the next morning is fine. I let it sit and I wash it. And if something doesn't come out, that's when I use baking soda and, or, but really the and is fresh lemon. I just use some lemon juice and I put it on the stain and I lay it out in the sun. We have so many sunny days here in Phoenix. So I'm super lucky gone like a brand new napkin. So that is my tip for stains on white napkins. And this little area right here is everything's new. Well, old, but new to me. And this is from Antique Gatherings, one of my favorite antique stores here. And, um, what's special about it is if you wind it up, there's actually, it plays silent night, like a music box. We'll have to try that again. Oh, there we go. Just reminds me of like those music boxes and these vintage ornaments I got at the flea market just this past weekend. I look at the Santa. The price was so good. I actually had sent my husband to Target to find some filler things. And I was like, you know what? Those just don't look right. And then I went to the flea market cheaper, more personality. It's so worth just checking out your local thrift store or an antique store. And now I'm going to take you right into the kitchen. So this is probably the focal point of the entertaining spaces as well, just before you go into the garden room. And I like to do something a little different every year, but I love a flocked garland. And, um, believe it or not, this is from Walmart and it had a lot of other things on it that I didn't love. And I just cut them out. It's a budget-friendly tip. And I also think anybody knows if you have flocked, you should probably put a mask on because your sinuses and all the things in it, but it's so worth it. It's so magical. I love to dress up my bottles because they need an outfit for the holidays too, but these are just simply napkin rings. And this is a set from William Sonoma. And I thought you could even use a scrunchie if you think about it or any napkin ring, it doesn't even have to have a bow, but what a great way to dress up your bottles and also give them as gifts to your hostesses. And, uh, this is kind of the place where I would have the drinks, the snacks during a party. And I have, um, a hostess checklist. So I have mastered all of the things that I have repeatedly done for weeks before the menu day before. So I will include this on my blog, Diana Elizabeth blog.com. And, um, you guys can, can get that list, but I like to put it behind like a sheet and I mark it off and I wipe it off so I can reuse it every time. And when I set the buffet, I thought that I would share it. Some know what this is, some don't, but these are vintage princess house and they are for your utensils. I use them for the buffet. So next to food, instead of leaving it in the Mac and cheese, you can place them right here and it just keeps the counter clean. And I think a good price point for these, you could find them at thrift stores would be under $10 under five. Of course, even better this cake stand and a tiered stand. These are from front gate. These ginger jars are from Williams Sonoma. And again, I, I just put the napkin rings on there because I didn't feel like tying a bow. I was like, this is so much easier. And also these bows are from Williams Sonoma as well. They have a, let me see if I can grab one right here. It's just a twist tie and it's, you know, you got to make holiday decorating easy because there's so much to do. So that's, that's a way that makes it easy. And I believe in decorating every nook and cranny in case you didn't notice. So I put up some Christmas decorations just right by the sink. This is a photo of my husband and I, our first Christmas portrait together. And this is a Victorian feather tree from antique gatherings. Look at these ornaments. Hold on. Let's look at this little basket with mushrooms in it. The vintage ornaments, just darling. So this area just put in all the little garlands and the cranberries to add some red. I purchased this, I think it's a horse in Sweden on my trip. And my neighbor, when her mother passed away, she gifted me a lot of her belongings. And one of them was this one, this horse right here. And I just love that. It's like a little family. So I bring them both out here on Christmas. So a lot of things in my house, obviously, you know, I love the thrift store. I love antique stores and I like to get a bargain. And so a lot of ornaments are from there. I'm going to show you something recently that I picked up from two antique stores and how I personalize them. So I found this frame at a flea market in front of Camelback Antiques and I didn't buy it. And it had haunted me for months. I had no plans for it. And then one day I walked back into Camelback Antiques and it was there and I just snatched it up. I had no plans for it. It was under a couch for months. Again, it's just that I knew I wanted it. And there was an old photo in there, which I also can't throw the guy away. He's like also under my couch. So when I see an oval frame, I just think of silhouettes. And you guys know, I love silhouettes. My last tour, I talked about the silhouettes I have around my house in my 40th. But I thought, what about seasonally if I did something? So here is Santa's silhouette. I found the clip art online. I enlarged it. Then I traced it. So Santa's here, or as they call Father Christmas. And I picked up these vintage Italian cherubs. And these are from antique gatherings. And I just put a sweet little ribbon around it. So they have little scarves. So I mean, what's more Christmas than angels, right? Now we are right off of the kitchen. We're going to go into my laundry bedroom, which you did not get to see last tour. But I want to introduce you to my new best friend who helps me with hosting. Her name is Mili. And she is a rotary iron. And she's amazing because with as many parties and entertaining that I have, I need to turn over napkins, linens, all the things, bed sheets, whatever. And all I have to do is I turn her on. And let me just give you a little. It heats up pretty quick, but I'm not going to run anything through it. But this is the rack that you put it on. So you would slide something in here. Again, this is, let's pretend this is damp for time's sake. And so come down and look at that. I can even speed it up if I wanted to. And it's incredible. And this is how I'm going to get stuff done, guys. This is how I'm going to have a party every day. I'm just kidding. But I could with this. So this has been an amazing help. And you can get this rotary iron at Williams-Sonoma. And since I will be spending quite a bit of time here, I need to look at something cute. So I decorated this. I picked this little smoking Santa up at the Christmas markets in Germany. And then these are from my visit in Prague, these little things. And I just thought they were a perfect little area to just remember my great times as I'm just ironing away and found some more things to put up. This was actually my mother's and I grew up looking at this and I think she's just clearing stuff out of the house. And so she gave it to me on my last trip and I carried it on the plane. And this is an area where a lot of my friends drop off their coats and bags. And this is also our entrance in and out before we go into the open air garage. And now I am coming out of the laundry mud room and we are in the backyard. The kitchen garden's right here. But I'm going to take you to the main backyard and show you how I decorated. And now we are in the backyard. And I would love to tell you about this garland because, guess what? It took me 20 minutes to put up this year. It didn't take that last year. The first year is always the worst, right? It's the first install. So I want to give you a little tip. When you take everything down, keep in mind for the following year. So just like my Christmas tree straight jacket, make it easy on yourself. So I left all of these garlands zip tied together and there's hooks which are permanent. And all I did is I just took it off. I didn't cut the zip ties, any of that. And then I marked which side is north, which side is south, and that all I had to do is hook it back on. Easy peasy. And these topiaries are from, these are faux, they're from Pottery Barn. I had some right over by the other entrance and exit. And I just put some of these twist tie bows on it to make it festive. And because Phoenix has just wonderful weather for our winters, very, very mild, we are outside a lot. So I had to decorate the outdoor space because it's another room to decorate and why not? So let me just show you what I've done. Again, I looked around and there's a lot of green and I thought, where do I need to add red? So poinsettias in the back and these lanterns adding the bows. This is my furniture from Patio Furniture, a Arizona-based company that is sold nationally. Something I learned when I worked with Patio Furniture is that in the wintertime, not with a wood-burning fireplace, but with gas, it's okay to have an umbrella as long as you have enough clearance. It keeps the warmth here, it acts as like a ceiling. So just make sure there's plenty of clearance and it's gas, but it really cozies up and you stay and linger longer. Don't know if you saw how cute this was, but it's my little reindeer. It's moss and it's a live ivy on it. This would be a fantastic hostess gift. It would be a generous hostess gift, but it is just, I mean, so sweet. And I know you're going to ask where, so you can order it off of Williams-Sonoma. I think they work with a local nursery and they send it, but I put a scarf on him though. He didn't come with a scarf, just a little ribbon. And now let me take you into the living room where you would be entering. When you first enter my home, the first thing you will see is me as Mariah Carey. I'm actually seeing her this weekend. It's her Christmas show. It will be my seventh time seeing her. I'm a huge fan. And this was one of our Christmas cards a couple of years ago. Photography is one of my background businesses and I wanted to do creative Christmas cards. So paired with this was my husband and we did a Home Alone cover. And these are our dads as the Wet Bandits. Then we had a follow-up the next year, obviously, with Home Alone 2. So Lost in New York, and we also have both of our dads there as well as the Wet Bandits. And I was the pigeon lady. That is not going in a frame. If you want to see it, I posted it on my social media so you can find me on Instagram, Diana Elizabeth underscore, and you can scroll back. It is on there, but that's not going to go on the Christmas decor part. This is a little tree that has some silk animal ornaments. And these belong to my grandmother. They were on our tree when we were little growing up. So these are all of them. And just a little nostalgia here, I found this paper mache bow at a thrift store. Probably like a dollar. It was just a good find. And I love twinkling lights. I think some people want steady lights or whatever. I put so much effort into Christmas, I want it to look like a Las Vegas billboard in here. I want to catch your attention. So twinkle lights everywhere. Here's our mantle. And I try to do something different every year. And this year I wanted to be a little whimsy, so I found these ornaments. I actually bought these after Christmas from McKenzie Child's. I love a good after Christmas sale. It is really hard because you can't put it off yet. You have to wait a whole year, but then it's really exciting. So these are out for the first time. And I wanted it whimsical. These stocking holders are old from Ballard Designs. I wish they still sold them and made them because I would get some more. And you might be wondering why I have four stockings. I am so blessed that my parents fly out from Northern California and stay with us for two weeks for Christmas. So I get to be the, I guess, the grown-up now and spoil my parents. So I bought these stockings. They're already, there's still stuff in here at Scottsdale Marketplace. And they have a little shop in the back that does monogram. So I did our initials. I totally feel like the parent here. I love it. And I know I'm very, very blessed to have my parents still around. And so I treasure the time that we have and that they come out. And this is a faux wood-burning fireplace. It is a wood-burning fireplace, but I found out that I have sinus issues when wood is burned. So I bought this because I love the ambiance of a fire. And yeah, I could probably like install gas, but it's just, it's messy right now. Like the idea of demo and doing that inexpensive. So I found this for, I don't know, not that expensive. I think on Amazon and it can be a heater, but we don't really need that right now. We just wanted to look. So I love that. And if you put it behind the screen, no one really notices. They just see that there's something and it gives me the ambiance without affecting the way that I breathe. And what's great is you can put chocolate in here now, and it's not going to melt by the time Christmas comes. And I found this paper mache Santa. He looks heavy. He's super light. And when I bought him, the ladies, I mean, I think they wanted to steal it from me who worked there, but I do rotate at estate sales and thrift stores twice. And I didn't see him until the second round and he was on the ground. And I don't even know how I missed him, but I'm glad that I found him and he's mine now. Now these are all the same pillow inserts because there's not room for more pillows, but lots of pillow covers. So most of these are from Pottery Barn recently. The back has faux fur and I just, I love a good tartan and we do Euro sham here and the quilted and it's just, it's so beautiful. And I just looked in this room and thought, where do I need red? And where do I need green and pillows? It was. And if there's an animal or a little figurine of a person gets a scarf. Now, something I thought with someone like me, who has a lot of Christmas and ornaments or themes, instead of getting multiple Christmas trees because of space or just the hassle is decorate your garland. So this is what I did. I found these ornaments at an estate sale. Some are new, but look at, okay, look at this word in the basket. Just darling. And I was going to use these on the mantle, but again, I had too many ornaments. So I thought, let's, let's put this on the garland. So this would be really great if you have a small space or a child's room, so they don't have to actually have a Christmas tree. Just put some garland up. And this is my vintage ornament wreath. I love the colors in it. It's not my traditional colors, but it was so sweet. Found this in the garage. Sometimes when I go to estate sales, I go straight to the garage because that is where all Christmas things are. I know you guys saw this on the last episode of the home tour of mine. This is our Harmon Hinch door. This is always closed during entertaining season, but I'm going to take you down the hallway and we're going to stop into my closet. We're going to go through the bedroom first. I have never done this before, but I had so much garland that I thought, let's just add it to the bedroom. And this was really fun. And I love it. And I just dress it up with some velvet ribbon. All right, now let's go into the dressing room because I need to show you my holiday clothes. Welcome back to the closet. What I like to do is I clear a rack. I just move some things around and I put all of my holiday outfits in one area because it gets me excited for the season. And it also reminds me to wear it because the season is pretty short. And let me point out a few things. You need a few things. Like this is my Mariah Carey outfit. I am thinking about wearing it to the concert, but we will see. For walking around the block, obviously to spread holiday joy. Cookie decorating. I found this at an estate sale and I cracked up. I put it back and I was like, oh wait, if that made me laugh, I have to get it. So cute. And just all the sparkly things to remind me to celebrate the season. I do like to decorate just a little bit in the closet because I do spend a lot of time. So these are glitter bottle brush trees. They're from Anthropologie many years ago. A little Santa. And this was actually supposed to be my Christmas tree topper this year. I know bows are a thing. I just changed my mind because I wanted something unique and I like the top hat a little bit better. But I was also not wanting to return it at the same time. So I found a place for it and I think it looks pretty cute here for the time being. Thank you for coming over. And before we go, I'd love to share with you my favorite holiday decor find. It's a life-size elf. Thanks for joining. I hope you guys have a great time entertaining all of your friends and enjoying one another's company. Thanks for watching. Be sure to go to homeworthy.com for exclusive content, shopping guides, and so much more.