Well, my last post was very intense and deep so I thought we'd talk about something much more fun, exciting, and lighthearted today! Besides, after reading the last post and applying the principles to your life, you should be overflowing with true joy and should be ready to turn on that Christmas music, light a wonderful Christmas fragrance candle, put on the hot cocoa, and ready to "Dec (orate) The Halls!" :) Since we are just 9 magical days away from Christmas, you better get a move on! :)
We all love the lights and sounds of the season don't we? I know in our family, it's an exciting past-time to take evening strolls through the neighborhood and rides through the city to look at the lights! The tacky light tours are the most exciting and really create the oooh's and aaaah's from the kids. I think the "tacky light" tours are wonderful......on someone else's house! :) No offense intended at all! In fact, if your house is on the tacky light tour, you have earned my full respect because the time, effort, and electric bill behind all that does not allow me to walk in victory so I admire you! For the sake of sticking with my mission to teach my readers how to walk in victory in every area of life, I'm going to assume that there are other mother's out there like me who have limited time, need to stay on the family budget, & desire to create a warm, simple, elegance at Christmas in their homes and I KNOW there are husbands out there who will appreciate not being expected to spend days on a ladder stapling hundreds of strings of lights to outline every square inch of the house! :)
So, here are some design ideas that I have implemented in the Fox household during Christmas to help me walk in victory in the area of time management, money management, coming alongside my husband with lower expectations about how much climbing up and down the attic steps and ladder I'll need him to do with me, and just in creating that warm, cozy, elegant, & festive atmosphere that my family & guests enjoy being in.
For the exterior, years ago I purchased pine swags for each of my windows. They are always on sale this time of year in bins at craft stores like Michaels or Ben Franklin. It is even more elegant I think, and definitely very budget friendly if you have a pine tree in your yard and clip a swag for each window yourself! While there grabbing my window swags (on sale that I would get my money's worth from by using each year for the last 10 years) I purchased some beautiful, wide, wire ribbon. Choose something that won't go out of style or change when you change home decor or colors. So I chose a very traditional red, green, & gold plaid Christmas ribbon. Since that time, I have learned how to make my own bows, but back then I didn't know how to, so I took the ribbon to the bow making counter and for a small fee, the woman behind the counter made all my bows for me for each swag (and my door wreath) and I have used them every year since. In fact, to digress a bit, I had her make a gorgeous coordinating tree topper bow for the top of our Christmas tree with 4 ends that drape down the tree from top to bottom and it is absolutely outstanding!
While there, I also purchased 2 grape vine reindeer (a mama and a baby). Those poor reindeer have traveled all up and down the east coast with us over the last 10 years! In fact, I had 2 coordinating bows made for their necks to appear as bow ties and pull it all together! For the door, I purchased a pine wreath and another coordinating bow and hot glued some pine cones (that I picked up out of the yard) and some colored glass ball ornaments to it. That's it! That's the exterior of my home at Christmas! In fact, my husband has come up with a creative way to place the swags in the windows without even using a ladder or nailing nails into the windows! We now open the window from the inside, he lifts the screen while I push the pine swag through to the outside, we simultaneously pull a couple of branches to the inside of the window and close the window on the branch to hold in place! It's the engineer in him I guess and now you reap the benefits of that education we pay student loans for! :) The swags go in the window, I usually place an electric candle in each window for lighting, the wreath goes on the door, I place the mama and baby grape vine reindeer in the front of the home, usually in the front garden bed of hedges, place a spot light in the yard to illuminate the house, swags, door wreath, and reindeer and on a good year, I have sometimes placed a few strings of white lights on the hedges around the reindeer and that's it!! In homes where I have had a front rocking chair porch or entrance stair rails, I have draped a string of pine garland trimmed with white lights as well!
Other budget friendly ideas of simple elegance that I have experimented with are to wrap fairly large boxes with shiny gold, silver, red, or green wrapping paper, top with large fabric bows and place those on a covered front porch or "wrap" the front door with shiny gold, silver, red, or green wrapping paper with a large bow to make the door appear as a present as well! Keep it simple and be creative! With a spot light shining on the front of the house to illuminate any of the creations you come up with, you eliminate the time and high electric bill of strung lights framing the house and windows and it is much more elegant!
For the interior of the home, consider similar elements of nature. I love to use as a centerpiece on my dining table a pine swag down the center of the table, I place some pine cones and colored glass ball ornaments in the pine swag and in the center, I use a large glass hurricane vase, fill it a little more than 1/2 way with tap water, throw in a bag of fresh cranberries (from the produce section of the grocery store), and place an ivory or white smaller pillar candle or votive in the center of the cranberries (the water will help it "float"). We light the candle at dinnertime and it sparkles against the cranberries and water and it is spectacular! You do have to change the water about once a week (it will start to turn pink from the cranberries).
On our Christmas tree, you will find white lights, gold beads, the bow tree topper and a collection of home-made ornaments the kids have made over the years. An idea I keep meaning to incorporate each year is to string popcorn and cranberries with the kids and use that for garland! Just a touch of simple Christmas elegance and warmth through elements of nature is what you will find in each room of our home - more pine garland and white lights draped up the staircase and along the fireplace mantle, glass hurricanes and vases filled with glass Christmas ball ornaments, glass candle sticks with festive candles, baskets filled with pine cones, my nutcracker collection scattered about, and then there is one splurge - personalized Pottery Barn stockings hung by the chimney with care! Each year I look through my Pottery Barn magazines that are faithfully mailed to me all year long. I usually copy their decorating ideas cheaper using Target look-alikes! Shhhh...that's our secret! :) However, often something will catch my eye that I just HAVE to have! So of course, I ask my husband, he seldom tells me no :) and do you know why? Because not only do I have a wonderful husband that loves to please me and bless me with all of the desires of my heart, but more so because he trusts me with our budget! I don't take advantage. I'm respectful and appreciative of all of his hard work and the income he provides, I honor him and his paycheck and what he provides for us by taking extreme care with it and living frugally, so that when I do get the urge to splurge on something, he knows I am responsible with our money and not wasteful and if I have requested something, it must be special to me in some way. It just always works ladies! Honor your husbands, earn their trust, respect all they provide for you and your family, and it really does become a two way street of love and respect!
Anyway, with all of the money you will save applying the above Christmas decorating ideas, you will have a little Christmas decor nest egg for a few splurge items and because your husband will be so appreciative that you have not only saved him all that money but more importantly you didn't require him to spend hours of his life playing Chevy Chase, he will gladly say, "Sure, honey, go ahead and splurge on that desire of your heart!" :)
Are you ready to WALK IN VICTORY over decorating your home this Christmas?! :) Then go! Turn on the Christmas music, put on the hot cocoa, keep it simple, stay on budget and within your time limitations, allow the kids to join in and most importantly allow the true joy and spirit of Christmas to radiate in your home!
PS - If you're like me, you need color by number! :) I will try to walk in victory over uploading a few pics later today to inspire you to do it yourself! :)
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