Winter Decorating

The moment leftover turkey and mashed potatoes find their way into the fridge after Thanksgiving, I shift into gear for Christmas and start decorating. The trees go up, the Advent wreath comes out, there’s garland about, snowmen, ribbon and a new wreath on the red door.

These decorations are out and lit during the whole holiday season, all the way until New Year’s Day when it’s time to move on from Christmas and hang a new calendar. Once all the festive Christmas decorations are packed away in the attic, the house kind of looks kind of sad. In order to avoid the 60 to 0 switch, not everything that goes up at the end of November is Christmas-centered.

Most often, my wreaths aren’t Christmas-specific, that way I can leave them up all winter. This year, I opted to make a pine cone wreath for the front door using the scented pine cones that were stashed after Christmas 2011.

Snowmen, snowflakes and inspirational words (joy, peace, hope, love) are also perfectly acceptable (to me) all winter, along with the metallic accents, so they stay long after the trees and stockings go away.

Sorry that I didn’t take any in-progress pictures, but if you want to make your own here’s how I made it:

Supplies

• Several pinecones in assorted sizes (I had 4 little ones leftover when I was done)
• Wire circle frame or old coat hanger bent into a circle
• Glue
• Thread
• Ribbon

Steps

1. I bent and old piece of wire hanger that was left in our basement into a circle.
2. Next, I laid out the pinecones on top of the frame to arrange how I thought would look best.
3. I then, placed a drop of glue on each pinecone between the “petals” and pushed the wire fram between the petals. I repeated with each pinecone [I ended up arranging the pinecones into a circle on the table, putting the glue on one then pressing the wire frame down so when I was done I had a wreath face-down].
4. In order to keep from having pinecones fall off because the glue let go, I wrapped thread through the cones and around the frame “sewing” it all together.
5. Finally, I took my ribbon, wrapped it around and then put a bow on it.

How do you keep winter from making your home feel bleak after the Christmas decorations go back in storage?