Tis the Season ~ To Decorate

Sleigh bells ringing, are you listening? In the lane, snow is glistening. It's a beautiful sight....

Christmas music is playing everywhere. There's lots of people in the malls shopping. Kids are taking photos with Santa and many of the presents are wrapped and under the tree and suddenly you notice that while Christmas is happening elsewhere, your own home is lacking holiday cheer, "bah humbug".

Well, it's true that to decorate a home beautifully, it takes weeks of preparations and lots of planning.

In order to decorate you have to take inventory of what decorations you have and what decorations you can pull off to make a quick Christmas spruce-up. Hopefully, you are hanging on to some past holiday treasures that have special meaning.

Be it those homemade ornaments given to you by your children when they were first-graders or the ornaments you picked up in different locations. After Christmas clearance sales.

We all collect and treasure holiday wreaths, ornaments, outdoor lighted Christmas decorations and many other personalized Christmas decorations that we have cherished for a long time, that will make our holiday decorations more personalized and more meaningful.

The secret is to give last year's decorations a careful going over. Packed garland has a tendency to become flat and misshaped, and a little time spent fluffing the sprigs can make a huge difference,

If needed, take time to iron out last year's ribbons and untie those bows and retie them so they will look fresh. Look at the old decorated holiday wreaths or grapevine wreaths to see if a new ribbon or some added greenery can make them look brand new.

Old decorations can be brought to life with a little gold spray paint and a little glitter. In my house we did lots of touching up and creating new handmade Christmas decorations.

Items such as plastic fruit or pine cones from the previous year that has lost their luster can be sprayed gold and made to look fresh and cheery.

Today many people are using outdoor lighted Christmas decorations, lots of fiber optic Christmas decorations, front door decorations and lights hanging all around the house and trees.

As a reminder you don't want to clutter Christmas or ribbon it to death. Smaller amounts of decorations make a bigger impact and are more elegant.

A glass bowl filled with Christmas balls can become a beautiful table decoration. It adds sparkle and color to a room.

We love Christmas music, especially the tunes we all associate with Christmases past, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Barry Manilow, Nat King Cole, Sammy Davis Jr. and many more, which we find is the best way to get into the Spirit of the Season.

A small vase filled with candy canes can always say "Happy Holidays." The citrus smell of oranges or tangerines, the warm smell of cookies and pies, the smell of pine, a fire in the fireplace and a cup of hot tea or cider really sets the stage for the Holiday Spirit.

When I think back to my early childhood, I remember my parents spending lots of time around the holidays making decorations and food for our family celebrations. We would make Christmas decorations together, this would be a special time of creativity and memory making.  The handmade decorations we made has become heirlooms for our family holidays.

Christmas is a wonderful time of year for gathering family and friends and sharing in meaningful traditions. It is a season for reaching out to others and for recalling memories from early childhood.

Remember when you're finished adding those quick-fix decorations, you may not actually hear sleigh bells ringing, are you listening, in the lane snow is glistening, but you will have to admit that it is indeed a beautiful sight. Merry Christmas and a Peaceful Holiday.