Hello dear friends! It's the holiday season which means that most likely you are home, or at someone else's home, or maybe if you're not in Germany (today is 2nd Christmas), you are shopping the big sales or enjoying some relaxing down time. Whether you celebrate the holidays or not, whether you have family or are alone and whether this time is special to you or simply "meh"... I simply want to send you many warm greetings and lots of love as I sign off until the new year. You have all been such an inspiration to me and next month will begin my 10th year of blogging... I still feel, in many ways, the same as I did when I first started, "Why do people even read my posts!?". I'm so glad that you do and for those of you who take the time to comment and share what you find here, thank you.

It means so much that I can support my family doing what makes me happiest - reaching out, sharing, writing and growing alongside all of you because no matter how "seasoned" or "pro" I may be, we're all in this together and I often feel as overwhelmed and unsteady, inspired and eager, drained and filled with anticipation by this whole blogging thing as you do. I may inspire you by my work but you've inspired much more in return because I simply couldn't keep all of this up without the incentive = YOU. I'm signing off for the next 10 days for some family time, but I'll be back again during the first week of January after New Year's, most likely the 5th. But since I didn't take maternity leave this year or vacation, I may linger a little and return a few days later. I'll have to see. If you'd like to keep busy, here are a bunch of great things for you to enjoy in my absence like...

My personal top 12 posts this year:

1. Resolve To Be Happy
2. Our Baby Aidan Benjamin Is Here!
3. Our Birth Story + Newborn Photography by Christin Lange
4. Can Full-Time Bloggers Live Off Of Rainbows & Hugs?
5. Our Baby Boy's Nursery Before + After
6. What Do Babies Play With?
7. Baby Essentials For The First Year
8. 22 Hard To Kill Houseplants
9. The Future Of Blogging – What Do You Think?
10. Blog Trends: Slow Blogging
11. 10 Ways To Create Hygge At Home
12. Our New Book Has a Website

Now for 9 blogs that are really lovely...

1. Tell Love and Chocolate
2. Hanke Arkenbout
3. Freutcake
4. Jeanie Micheel
5. Two Loves Studio
6. Sugar & Cloth
7. Carnets Parisiens
8. Mokkasin
9. Anna Malmberg

15 favorite design finds (or purchases) this year:

1. Floyd leg
2. Muuto Stacked Shelves
3. Superfront
4. Jonathan Adler Owl Bookends (still on my wishlist!)
5. Anything from Menu A/S
6. & Other Stories
7. Kauniste in Finland
8. This amazing cabinet
9. Fujifilm INSTAX Instant Smartphone Printer
10. Copper foil tape
11. Matte white washi tape
12. Band.do iPhone cases
13. Hubble & Duke baby mocs
14. Ali Edwards December Daily kit (I'm nearly finished with mine!)
15. My amazing pineapple Aimee Wilder wallpaper

And...

New Year's Eve inspiration for you - a whole lot of it... --Click here--

Thank you, dear readers, for another rewarding year on decor8! And a big thanks to those who help me on this blog like Jessy, Flora, Liz & Jewels and Holly and the teachers who worked with me on Blogging Your Way this year - Tina, Fiona, Nichole along with my husband Thorsten. Also, a hug and thanks to Leslie because our book launched this past Spring and it's so lovely and super successful thanks to her - it looks like Decorate With Flowers will soon be in 12 languages/editions with Japanese releasing in January. Woo hoo!

Love, Holly xo

(credit: trimming)