Making Your Home Festive

Well, it’s that time again. Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and Christmas is fast approaching. The decorations are starting to appear in stores, and I’m sure I heard someone playing carols in the salon the other day.

Clients often start asking what they can do to make their homes feel more festive without spending a small fortune on new decorations every year.

The big thing to get right is the lighting.

Buy a good quality string of fairy lights and arrange them artfully around your home. Highlight the Christmas tree and any beautiful arrangements you have.

Collecting holly and pine needles allows you to create lovely table arrangements that have a lovely festive feel (and smell!) without costing you really anything. Get whatever little wild flowers you can get your hands on – even if you have to buy them – and lay them out in bowls of water with floating candles.

These arrangements create a lovely ambience and are just as effective as buying expensive decorations.

And if you’ve got kids to keep occupied, here’s something they can make without much supervision, that will add to the festive feel of your home’s decorations:

Collect some pine cones and get a few lengths of tinsel. Cut the tinsel into small pieces, and stick each piece into the gaps in the pine cones with a little bit of glue. Collections of these pretty pine cones can be clustered around the tree, arranged on the table as place holders, or strewn around the front door for a festive greeting.