The Saturday after Thanksgiving is one of my favorite days of the year…it’s the day we pick out our Christmas tree! We had artificial trees for years when our kids were little, but when we moved into this great older house, I decided we needed a real tree.
The last couple of years I’ve decided to decorate my tree organically with pinecones, sticks and wood accents. I love this look and it really compliments the tree.
I also love to decorate my beautiful banister with a garland and lights. It makes a dramatic impact the moment guests enter the house. My advice on garlands to buy artificial! As crazy as that sounds (since I love my real tree) I have bought real garlands in the past and they have not lasted the whole Christmas season. There is no good way to water a garland like you water a tree, so they dry out quickly and become a fire hazard! Invest in a really nice artificial garland and you can use it for years.
Decorating the mantle is one of my favorite parts of Christmas decorating…I try to stretch my creativity by doing a different design every year. And that’s actually one of my main tips for you. Decorating will always be fun and interesting if you rethink how you use your decorations each year.
Another tip is to remove regular decorations to make space for your Christmas decor. If you try to just add your Christmas decorations to your house as it is, your house can get cluttered looking. This year I removed a large blue and gold painting I had above the mantle and added a mirror and my Christmas angel singers, plus a garland and lots of lights. No matter how pretty I think this year’s mantle turns out, I’ll still try to do something completely different next year to keep it fun!
The Christmas tree and greenery accents are such an important part of Christmas – they bring life and color to the decorations you pull out year after year. And as Willa and Puca will tell you, there’s nothing better than gazing at a beautifully lit tree.
