Holiday Decorations and Garland

[SereneSeagull]

What decorations past or present, have you created for the holidays?

Wreaths, centerpieces, placemats, tree decorations, garland, or anything else?  

For a couple of Thanksgiving dinners, I've hollowed out miniature pumpkins and filled them with flowers for centerpieces on the tables.

   In the past I've loved stringing popcorn, or cranberries and making garland strands for the tree. 

Or taking oranges and inserting whole cloves into them, then hang them in the house for a wonderful scent.

   I think making things for the house or for others. helps with feeling in the mood for the holidays. 

[SereneSeagull]

How could I have forgotten this one?  Construction paper chain ring garland!  
I think that’s the first decoration I remember making as a kid.  White paste and strips of construction paper.  We’d make a long chain of them.  

[LisaS961881]

   Gosh yes!  We made lots of those when I was a kid.  Only now will I admit that I taste-tested the paste. 🤭.  We always made them on the weekend after Thanksgiving and strung them everywhere around the house!

    Later, as a teacher, we made paper chains for Autumn (brown, yellow orange), Christmas (red and green of course) and Valentine’s Day (red, pink, white) to decorate our classroom as well as the front office.  In retrospect, it was a fun way to enact our own version of “bringing in the greens” to offset those short, dark Winter days!

    Thanks for posting this - I am smiling as I write this reply. 🤶

[SereneSeagull]

Love the idea of the kids doing them at other times!  Yes, I think between checking out the paste and sniffing the mimeo papers, we’ve all done it!

[LisaS961881]

     I love to decorate with garland!  I’m going to share a nerdy “tip” that everyone probably realized years before I did! 

      I’ve always purchased faux holly/Holly berry foliage picks because of the toxicity of Holly berries, and used them in outdoor garlands and pots.  Year after year, after being exposed to the winter snow and rain, the red color on the berries would partially flake off - exposing the white plastic or styrofoam underneath.  …so I’d trim them or trash them, then purchase new ones.

     I must have been doing this at least a dozen years until a friend casually mentioned that she “touched up” her faux Holly berries with cheap red nail polish from Dollar Tree!  Voila! 💡…..now every year in late October, I bring my faux foliage picks out to the garage, sit on the steps in the sun, and methodically search for and then paint over those “white spots” with red nail polish that cost so little! Works like a charm and saves me a bundle too!

                             …..🤶🎄

[SereneSeagull]

Oh that’s a great idea.  Do the critters try and get those at all? 

[LisaS961881]

     Giggled at this - nope!  But the squirrels love to bury things in my clay pots that are filled with greens, fake berries, and white birch branches!

[SereneSeagull]

lol! And that reminded me of a fun relative I had.  He used to tell us he’d like to be buried in the dirt, standing up with an acorn in his mouth.  Circle of life and all.  😂. Whether it be a mighty oak that would sprout from him or a squirrel in search of food.