Winter Holiday Decorations

Holiday decorating is a fun activity for the whole family. This year, bring nature inside and create some table centerpieces, wreaths, and swags from the forest or your neighborhood.

Take a winter walk with your family and gather nature’s bounty to create your own decorations. Fill a backpack or canvas bag with pine cones in all different shapes and sizes. They can be added to mantels, wreaths, or to dress up a table.

Toss in a few acorns, holly, ivy, and pine branches. You can make your
own wreath with some wire and hot glue. Tie a colorful ribbon at the
bottom to finish it up!

Add strings of cranberries or popcorn to
your holiday tree in place of tinsel, Using some sturdy thread and a
large needle, string your berries and popcorn into a colorful garland.
Create a pretty red and white pattern by adding three cranberries and
one piece of popcorn and keep going until it’s long enough to go around
your tree once. Or come up with your own pattern! After the holiday is
over you can place them on an outdoor tree as a treat to birds and
squirrels.

Create your own scented pomander decoration from
oranges or lemons. You’ll need a lemon or orange and whole cloves. Poke
the cloves into the lemon rind and cover the whole fruit. Or you can
create a pattern or write words, such as Peace or Joy! They smell
great! Use them to decorate a table or a mantel. Give one to a friend
or neighbor as a gift!

Be creative. You can use apples,
pomegranates, dried flowers such as hydrangeas, or pine branches to
make your own centerpiece for a holiday table.

We all love
dazzling holiday lights on dark winter evenings. But traditional
incandescent lights can use a lot of energy. This year, light up your
holidays with LED
(light-emitting diode) lights. They use much less energy. The U.S.
Department of Energy says that you can save 90% or more energy by
running LED lights on a 6-foot tree for 12 hours per day for
40 days when compared to traditional
incandescent holiday lights.

The National Christmas Tree
near the White House in Washington, D.C. is outfitted with LED lights.
For the past 47 years, General Electric has provided the design and
lights for the tree. This is the first year they have used all LED
lights on the tree and the smaller states and territories trees that
are also featured in the display.

How will you decorate this year?

Photograph by Poulomee Basu, My Shot