Alright, y’all. Today is a quick post that might spread a little bit of holiday cheer, I know it does for me. I got pretty emotional writing this, not because of how beautiful it turned out (it’s cute though:)) But thinking about the moms living here during the holidays and what that must be like for them. It’s an immediate shutdown of all my overwhelm and puts things into place pretty quickly. This is our third year of decorating the Family Promise Shelter for the holidays with my kids (and this year, like 12 of their friends:)). The building is a former La Quinta hotel that has been turned into a shelter that houses and rehabilitates 70 families (each family has their own room or adjoining room, depending on size). The angels that work there help them to find permanent housing and jobs, and we witnessed so many kind and tender moments between the families and the employees while we were there (if you are a social worker, god bless you, seriously). It was recently renovated, and we helped furnish the lobby last year and have some ongoing projects in other spaces, but adding the holiday layer was so fun, fast, and fulfilling (and something my kids can be involved in). It’s honestly a huge gift to me to be able to do it, and it has become an afternoon that I really, really look forward to during the busiest time of the year. It’s a huge reset and reframe that I personally need to get me out of the stuff that doesn’t matter and back down to what does, so thank you. I’m so grateful to Family Promise for letting me bring this very respectful and excited crew in for a few hours last week after school. More at the end of the post on how you can help, should you be able to.

The Lobby Pre-Holiday

Desks | Desk Chairs | Woven Bench | Leather Armchairs

The lobby is newly updated and was a blank slate for us. A huge shout out to AllModern for gifting the furniture a couple of months ago. Gretch helped pull this together, and it’s obviously not accessorized yet, but having nice-looking furniture versus random pieces that are donated makes a huge difference. We chose high-quality, easy-to-care-for pieces that look good together. The employees were so, so grateful.

The Dining Room Before

While we didn’t furnish this room, it’s so nice that all the pieces match (they didn’t last year). It was tricky to figure out how to decorate all the rooms without putting anything on the walls (except one nail for a wreath that they approved). Having been newly renovated, the operations manager didn’t want even command strips or blue tape on the walls, so we needed to get creative on the window and columns. (Most people don’t know how to take off command strips properly, so we fully understood the fear of damaging the new walls… I mean, I begged and promised at first, but ultimately our job was to make their lives easier, not harder, so we came up with some creative solutions.)

The Bonus Room Before

The bonus room is for the older kids to do homework and hang out (plus it houses the pantry food for the families to select from behind the blue tarp), and they have a lot of programming, so they asked us just to do this corner, and again, nothing on the walls, but we could do the windows.

The Plan

Gretch and I spent a couple of days shopping, and I had to plan out kid-specific projects. Then we set everything up so that when the kids joined, it would be organized (and not chaotic – the goal was for the kids to only be there for 2 hours). I needed easy, doable but still fun projects for them, so here is what I came up with:

1. Paper Chains – Duh. A real no-brainer here, and while we couldn’t put them on the walls, we were allowed to command strip them to the windows or rig them in the ceiling tiles.
2. Window Paint – We created the template so it wasn’t a free-for-all, and they did patterns within the “ornaments,” and then, you’ll see, they went rogue, but it was so hard to stop them! Easy to clean after, I promise.
3. Magnetic Paper Trees For All The Tables – Opening them up and arranging them all (I thought these would be easy to take down and store as well, taking up so little space).
4. Decorate The Trees With Curated And Shatterproof Ornaments.
5. Column Fun – Gretch and Marlee figured out how to wrap the columns with elastic tied at the top to hold the lightweight ribbon in place without even using tape 🙂

I also really wanted everything to be easy to either dispose of (paper chains) or store in an organized way per room, so that next year we can do the exact same thing without shopping (most of the stuff we bought in the past got all jumbled together so we gave that all to the families to use in their rooms which they were so excited about and started fresh this year so it would look more pulled together). I wanted it to be easy to clean around, take down, and put back up.

The window painting was the biggest hit. I found inspiration on IG, and Gretch drew the template so that the kids could fill it in.

We did three different color palettes per room – more of a traditional red/green/white in the dining room, an icy winter wonderland in the lobby, and more of a Dr. Seuss colorful vibe in the bonus room.

We tried to sequester the kids in here so that the families had privacy. In the past, some of the kids living here have wanted to help, but I am super sensitive to the fact that most kids feel awkward being around other kids (especially tweens and teens), so we were quiet and fast. Ninja elves!

The kids were the most delighted about this room (the colors were so fun). They had a fun dog training session (where the kids can help train their own dogs – the shelter allows pets, which I think is so wonderful), so we had to be out of here early, and I got to hear a few kids squeal.

The Dining Room

Kaitlin came with her girls to help, too, and she snapped a few very quick photos to show you. It was 6 pm, no light and no time to style-to-camera, but you get the vibe 🙂 We put clusters of foldable paper trees on each table and drew on all the windows. We used Posca paint markers and these fat ones (the internet told me they’ll easily wash off). Then Brian hung these Santa hats from the corners of the ceiling tiles. It felt festive and high-impact considering all the constraints.

We added that potted tree in the corner (from Target) and two lamps to the computer tables (that will stay permanently), along with some holiday village houses, holiday pillows, and a throw. Then Gretch figured out how to hang these stars with paper clips from the ceiling tiles. The tree we bought last year fit perfectly in this little nook, and we used mostly blue, silver, and hits of burgundy (the bows) on it.

I really didn’t want it to look messy or overly cluttered since it’s the first thing people see, and there can be a lot of deliveries, packages, and people in here, so we kept it minimal. Foldable trees, a few large velvet nutcrackers, and villages.

Table Lamp

The Bonus Room

Last year, we bought this light-up leaning nutcracker and presents, which the kids really loved. They had a tree for in here, but as soon as we opened it that day, we realized it was missing a few pieces, so we popped down to Lowe’s and bought this cluster of flocked trees (literally the only 6′ trees they had left, so we added two smaller ones to fill out the corner). But I think it turned out so cute!

A big thanks to the these elves for helping, but mostly thank you to the shelter for appeasing me and giving me the gift of being able to help (and by allowing my kids to be a part of it – my team could have likely done it faster and with less mess without them, but it meant the world to me to have them be able to help). The most rewarding part of it was that the social workers (who are legit angels on earth) were so delighted, kept commenting on how festive it felt, and how it was getting them in the spirit of the season. Social work is famously a hard career, with a lot of turnover, so creating a place they might enjoy working in has been a major motivator for me. We tried to keep a very small footprint and not disrupt the families (or make the other kids feel awkward in any way), so we stayed mainly in the dining room, but the employees told me that many of the families and kids were so, so, so happy (a few moms went out of their way to thank us). While Family Promise is providing a warm, safe place to live (and eat – so many volunteers come to cook every night), I know that having their holiday here is not their ideal. I think about the moms a lot. Like, if I’m overwhelmed during the holidays, desperate to stay on top of everything while giving my kids a magical Christmas, how must they feel?

If you are looking to help or donate, they wanted me to let you know that gift card donations are most appreciated (you can drop them off or mail them). They have a very stocked inventory of toys and clothes for younger kids that the parents shop from, but the tweens and teens are harder, so the moms want gift cards to Amazon or Fred Meyer (which is across the street) in $25 increments so that they can shop for their own kids or give them the autonomy to buy their own gifts. If you’re local, they’re also hoping to receive gift bags since they save time on wrapping. And they’re also planning to provide hot cocoa kits for everyone in the shelter this Christmas (just a mug with hot cocoa in it), so donations toward that would be wonderful too. In-person drop-offs are great—no appointment needed, but Monday-Friday between 10 am-6 pm is the preferred drop-off time, or packages can be addressed to:

Family Promise Donations
Family Promise of Tualatin Valley
11460 SW Pacific Highway
Tigard, OR 97223

The director told me to thank you – she said they received a lot of donations from you after we posted about it during the Snap shutdown – so thank you so very, very, very, VERY much. I’m pretty overwhelmed right now with gratitude to be able to help and to have an online community willing to give. So much love for you for reading, giving, and just being here. Thank you. xx

*After Photos by Kaitlin Green