christmas decorating

Our Favorite Christmas Memories!

“Christmas is the day that holds all time together.”
— Alexander Smith

Christmas is a kind of magic that is almost impossible to replicate in any other way. You find yourself looking forward to the season of candy canes and carols way past childhood. In fact, sometimes the genuine appreciation of love means more as the years move forward.

This year we had local photography angel, Jana Musselwhite, over at the shop during our Christmas Sweater party! Our team had the best time fawning over each-other’s sweaters as we arrived. From 90’s kid snowmen to hand-beaded poinsettias, each sweater was absolute serotonin. What a fun surprise to watch your best girls walk through the door in their jolliest attire. 10/10 recommend!

In this blog, our team spent some time reflecting on our favorite Christmas traditions and memories. We hope you enjoy reading through each person’s holiday highlight reel. Maybe some of our traditions are your traditions too. However you are spending the Christmas season, we hope you find warmth through sincere love. Whatever that looks like. There is no wrong way to be with the people you love most. Merry Christmas and a very happy new year <3

Meredith - Shop Owner

The Bustle team shares their favorite christmas memories and traditions.

My favorite Christmas memories were waking up at my grandparents' house and walking with my grandmother to the living room where a fire would be roaring in the fireplace and stockings would be stuffed with goodies. We would spend the day with the whole family playing with new toys, talking and listening to Christmas music by the fire. My Christmas memories are probably my favorite memories of all.

Cherry - Bridal Consultant

The Bustle team shares their favorite christmas memories and traditions.

I’m so thankful the celebration of Christ is seen and heard everywhere this time of year. A tradition in our family is going to my brother’s hunting camp before Christmas. My brother loves to decorate for Christmas so the camp is very festive! We really enjoy the hay rides, skeet shooting, looking for arrow heads, and the Saturday night gingerbread house competition. 

On Christmas Day our family gets together for dinner and our kids and grandkids enjoy getting a stocking filled with goodies. We cherish our time together and for that I’m grateful!

Jessica - Bridal Consultant

The Bustle team shares their favorite christmas memories and traditions.

My family and I have a tradition of picking out a real Christmas tree the day after thanksgiving every year. The tradition began when I was a little girl. We went shopping for our tree together and my Dad would go to the front door with the tree and ring the doorbell as if he were delivering it to us. My husband and I have continued this tradition, and our boys love going and picking out our tree. They get so excited when Daddy rings the doorbell and asks, "Did someone order a Christmas tree?"

Laine - Creative Director

The Bustle team shares their favorite christmas memories and traditions.

Every year, my Grandmother makes a BIG production out of Christmas. There’s a theme, a story to tell, puppets for the little ones, and my favorite part: costumes! My eccentric Grama and my usually very serious grandfather (we call him Podges) don the most ridiculous costumes they can find that fits the theme of the year, and show up with a car full of presents to put on the Christmas show. She has dressed up as a giant Apple, The Eqyptian Queen Cleopatra, a Wild West Saloon Girl (yep, you heard me) and this year, a big brown bear. It’s always something, and we never leave Christmas without a few good belly laughs! 

Lily - Bridal Consultant

The Bustle team shares their favorite christmas memories and traditions.

One of my favorite Christmas memories was watching my mom make homemade Christmas wreaths. It was a small touch, but it elevated our home and looked better than anything you would find in the store! Although I didn’t always partake in putting together the wreaths growing up, it’s something I want to start incorporating into my own Christmas traditions.

Jillian - Blog Strategist

The Bustle team shares their favorite christmas memories and traditions.

What I love most about the holiday season is how traditions that mean so much as a child grow with you and become part of your life as an adult. Growing up, my grandmother always gave each grandchild a special ornament to open on Christmas Eve. I love remembering how excited me and my siblings would get over what our ornament would be. My grandmother always made sure the ornaments reflected our lives that year and represented things that were significant to us. I carried this tradition into my marriage. Now every year, my wife and I pick out an ornament that represents a memory of the year before and it makes decorating our tree each Christmas season sweet and a little teary.

Mckinley - Bridal Consultant

The Bustle team shares their favorite christmas memories and traditions.

Every Christmas my husband’s grandma makes homemade gingerbread houses from scratch. Every year during the Christmas season all the grandkids get-together to decorate and it’s so much fun! She makes all the gingerbread, icing, and extras all herself!

Elizabeth - Bridal Consultant

The Bustle team shares their favorite christmas memories and traditions.

My favorite Christmas tradition is making and decorating homemade sugar cookies with my two sisters and grandmother. I now have three nephews who are a part of the tradition and we look forward to it every Christmas Eve! 

Kathryn - Bridal Consultant

The Bustle team shares their favorite christmas memories and traditions.

My favorite holiday tradition has always been breakfast on Christmas morning. My family does a big get-together on Christmas Eve, so by Christmas morning after all the presents are unwrapped we are ready to settle in for some calm. My mom cooks a big breakfast and we sit around the table and take time to reflect on the past year and share stories from Christmas’ past. This time of reflection and being together has always been special to me. It’s a time I cherish each and every year 

Crafting with Claire: Holiday Mantle

“May your walls know joy, may every room hold laughter, and every window open to great possibility.”
— Mary Anne Radmacher

Claire Jackson is such a refreshing part of our Bustle family. When she isn’t wowing us with her endearing creativity, she is spending time with her sweet husband, Dan, and their two precious children, Eleanor and Henry.

We all know someone who makes decorating look effortless. Claire is THAT person. Everything she touches turns into a Pinterest ad and we love her for it. While we can’t all be a “Claire", at Bustle we want to make the art of creativity attainable for everyone. That’s why Claire has made it her personal goal to curate crafts that we can all partake in. Every season, she will lead us in a step-by-step guide through the latest diy trends. Whether you’re crafting with kiddos or by yourself with a glass of wine, we hope you enjoy this pretty piece of mindfulness

This season’s Crafts with Claire is a beautiful homage to the warmth of home for the holidays. There is something so heartfelt about a festive mantle with twinkling lights and nostalgic decor. This setting will be the backdrop to your most treasured memories for years to come.

In this blog, Claire will guide us through her process of designing the coziest Holiday Mantle, shopping at one of our favorite places on earth, TARGET.


It seems like the big box stores ordain their shelfs with holiday merriment earlier and earlier each year. Sometimes the array of stockings and Christmas garland can be quite overwhelming. We’ve all had that moment of standing in the middle of the holiday lights display, trying to figure out what size bulbs would be just perfect for our tree. Claire is helping us get our holly jolly together this season!

She took on the task of using a $50 design budget to create a mantle worthy of all our White Christmas dreams. She frolicked through the aisles of Target to pull this project together and we are NOT disappointed. We hope you can get some inspiration from Claire’s lush display. Keep an eye out for links to shop some of these items for your own decor!

“Christmas is a piece of one’s home that one carries in one’s heart.”
— Freya Stark

Claire’s Tips to Build an Aesthetic Holiday Mantle

1.) When you start designing a new display, it helps to make the key elements of your design symmetrical and then add other things to make it interesting and give balance.

2.) Add lights for that Christmas glow!

3.) Working vintage items into your scheme will add sentimentality and warmth to your design.

BUSTLE IS DRESSED FOR CHRISTMAS

It’s no secret that we love the holidays. ESPECIALLY, decorating for the holidays. Let’s be real, some of the most fun we have over the Christmas season is scouring for the perfect scented pinecone. And while we’re busy trying to decide which poinsettia pillow best fits our aesthetic, we are finding simple joy. The feeling of accomplishment as each little corner comes together is a familiar form of serotonin. Decorating Bustle for Christmas was every bit of therapy that we needed it to be. While fun, we’d be lying if we said it didn’t come with a few…. hiccups. If you’d like to see our decorating feats AND blunders, you can watch our recent reel here <3

Christmas is a season for kindling the fire for hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.
— Washington Irving

We hope you all have a beautifully decorated holiday season. Sending all our love!

Decorating the Bustle store for Christmas in Birmingham, Alabama.