If cheesy puns make you gag, you may want to go ahead and click away now while you’re still holding your cookies.

My Christmas mantel is up!

In the past, my Christmas mantels have been sparkly, silvery metallics…

But this year I went a different direction with a brass deer, graphic black and white and some DIY golden magnolia garland. (Tutorial for the garland is here!)

It all started when I found that handsome little reindeer, whose name shall be Blitzen. He is bronze and heavy and has the charming, distinguished face of a gentleman buck.

I feel certain he is precisely the kind of reindeer who might own a pocketwatch.

I brought him home and didn’t show Andy for a few days because he tends not to understand my little growing menagerie of animal statues. He likes to laugh at them and call them names… (like Pinocchio). I knew I had to buck up and reveal him eventually. But as soon as he saw Blitzen, Andy grabbed him enthusiastically out of my hands, ran to our bed and held him on the wall right over the headboard, asking if we could hang him right there in our room, as the centerpiece.

I was speechless. “You actually LIKE HIM?!!” Andy had never looked so attractive as he did at that moment.

So with Andy’s blessing, I decided to have some fawn. I popped Blitzen up on the mantel and added the wreath around his neck to give him some extra visual weight. Because he is clearly the most noble, dignified reindeer of all, I gave him a striped bow-tie in black and white ribbon.

I love him deerly.

To one side, I added some glittery twigs and a stem of black and gold-glittery dogwood flowers…

On the other, just a simple apothecary jar of ornaments.

And anchoring the whole deal is a gold magnolia garland. I’ll show you how I made that in another post soon!

I’m kind of “having a moment” with black and white + gold, if you couldn’t tell by this post. It’s a different look and doesn’t scream “CHRISTMAS, YO!” but it was fun to try something new this year.

I’m fawned of it.

Oh deer.

In all fairness, I warned you the puns would not be intelligent. Do you decorate a mantel for the holidays? How do you feel about brass animals, excessive personification and silly puns?

P.S.: This week is the holiday housewalk! I’ll be sharing my home tour Thursday, but in the meantime, you can check out the other homes in the tour right here.