We’re heading on into the Christmas season. Next weekend we’ll put up our decorations – we wait until December 1st to do that, no matter how tempting it is to do it earlier.
If you’re decorating on a budget, it’s quite simple to look festive with virtually no money. You don’t really need to wait in a lineup to get the latest blow up Santa from the store, although you can if you really want to. But sometimes simple is just as effective and much less expensive.
Create paper snowflakes out of white paper, tissue paper, and scrapbook paper and hang them from a colorful Christmas ribbon along the mantlepiece or across a window as a garland.
Create Scandinavian Christmas stars. Cut out a star from black paper, and add strips of tissue paper to the inside. Place this in a window and let the light shine through.
Decorate with pine or cedar boughs, or turn these into a homemade wreath for the door. A neighbor recently cut down a tree, and we have a collection of boughs for the railings on our steps. We’ll likely have some left over to twist around a coat hanger and secure with a bright red ribbon to make a wreath.
Decorate with pine cones. Here, we have many cones that fall from the trees. Collect these cones and gather them in clear pots to create displays that can be used as a base for branches or as a beautiful centerpiece all on their own.
This one has a cost, but it’s a small one. Collect candles and create a simple display of candles of different heights in simple colors. Candles are lovely and quiet and celebrate the light that comes with this season.
Outdoors, create ice lanterns. Collect coffee tins and small, flexible cups. Pour water into the coffee tins and place them in the freezer. When they are partially frozen, place a cup into the middle. After they are completely frozen, pour warm water around the outside to release the lantern and remove the cup from the middle. Place them outside with a small candle in the middle.