Christmas Decorating. 1. The Fire Place Mantel

I snipped evergreen limbs from the yard, threw them on the mantel, added candles and some fake plastic fruit. I can't tell if it looks like cozy ensemble or a mess, but it's festive.

I also had placed our stockings on the mantel, via heavy iron stocking holders. There were there long enough for O to show me that he is just tall enough to grab the stocking, but not long enough for the logical conclusion to stocking grabbing to occur (that is, pulling down the stocking, carrying the cast iron holder with it, and crashing onto his head).

I'm perplexed with how to accessorize this part of our living room. The fireplace looks unbalanced to me. Starting at the top, the ceiling comes to a point on the right side of the center line of the fireplace. And then the left side of the fireplace is bricked, but the right side is sheetrock. And then there's the hearth; it extends on the right, but not on the left. Plus, I have a scale problem with many of the accessories I have, as in, they were purchased for decorating small apartments of our grad school years.

So, when I try to accessorize this area in a traditional way, it just looks weird and even more unbalanced. I need to embrace the asymmetry, but I'm out of ideas.