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I am trying to come up with ideas for personalized Christmas
decorations. First let me give you a little background. I hate Christmas. I mean, I
REALLY hate Christmas. The reason I hated it was my Dad. Every year he
would become drunk and abusive. Needless to say, I hate Christmas and
all the bad memories it conjures up. However, I have a new baby.
She will be 6 months old on Christmas Day. I don't want my hatred for
the season to rub off on her. I want her to have HAPPY Christmas
memories and really love the holiday. I have been trying to come up with Christmas decorations. I want to
decorate the entire house -- inside and out. I have some Christmas
ideas. I will not be going with a nativity scene. It will focus
more on Santa, his reindeer and the elves. I have a great idea to
set up a Garden Gnome Christmas party in the back yard -- complete with a
drunken gnome I bought in South Australia. I have an idea to paint
a fireplace complete with stockings on canvas for the front porch.
Plus the usual Christmas lights and wreaths. I need to add that I am in
Australia where it will be summer when Christmas happens. However, I
also have a idea for a Winter Wonderland scene either in the front
or back yard. Now for my dilemma... I have plenty (and expensive) ideas for
outside. But I am drawing a blank for inside. Any one have any
good ideas? I know we will have a tree inside. Perhaps some
stockings. But I am not sure what to do. |
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-would a pretty basket full of pinecones be too simple to
suggest? They're not difficult to obtain for free if you poke around
a bit or ask someone with a pine tree. Heck, they'll probably be glad
if you offered to pick up the darn thing and dispose of them. You can
spray paint them gold, apply glitter, whatever. Gingerbread house? I always wanted to make one of those when I
was a kid. If you don't want to buy the kit or bake, you could try
faking it with graham crackers, frosting and using hard candies,
gumdrops, candy canes, etc. to decorate the outside. I admit the
attraction of that for me was the possibility that it was edible. There's the old-fashioned way of decorating with greens and
mistletoe, which might be a lovely tradition. Or if you can find
cheap cinnamon in bulk, I recall seeing a recipe online for cinnamon
dough ornaments you roll out and bake--I bet they'd smell great! But whatever you do, relax...I believe you mentioned your
child is 6 months old? It'll be a Christmas miracle if she remembers
this holiday season. At any rate, I'm sure that a loving parent
and a warm happy house will more than enough to make her feel good. -You can mix epsom salts with beer and paint the corners of your window
panes to look like frost. I can't remember the ratio [1:3 is sticking
in my mind]. But, I'm sure you can find it with a search. It's cheap
and easy to remove when the holiday is over. Make or splurge and buy nice stockings with your names on them. If you
make or buy them with quality in mind they should last forever with a
little care. Things like stockings can elicit great memories. Start an ornament tradition. Have everybody give each other a well
thought out ornament. I'm not sure if you have a SO. If you do..give
the SO an ornament from the baby too. With a note about it. And vice
versa. I'd even go so far as to putting the various ornaments into good
ornament storage boxes for each person when you decomp from Christmas.
I'd keep notes about the ornaments with each one. That way, year by
year, everybody can take their box of ornaments out that they received.
They can read the notes. They can remember good thoughts. They can
share them with everybody else. Above all else..don't try for perfect Martha Stewart, expensive,
wasteful, meaningless tripe. It won't make your past Christmasses any
better. |
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