Tips of The Season

When my grandmother entered a retirement home, the holidays seemed to bring her down. The staff did their best to decorate the halls and shared spaces, but it was up to the patients to decorate their own rooms, if so desired.

My grandmother desperately missed having a Christmas tree, but there simply was not enough of room in her small room. To surprise her, we bought her an artificial prelit Christmas tree. It stood about 3 feet tall and had all of the twinkling lights already attached. There was no work involved when setting it up.

All that was required was plugging it in and adding some other decorations. She loved it. To her, it was a symbol of still having some independence inside of her. The holidays could still be celebrated. That prelit Christmas tree lit up her room all day long and she stared at it when falling asleep at night. That was her last Christmas on this planet and I was happy to know that she enjoyed the holiday as she would have if living at home.

A prelit Christmas tree is not just for elderly people and nursing homes. It is for people who hate fighting with putting the strands of lights on their trees each year. Having a prelit Christmas tree means that you do not have the fresh pine smell of a real tree in your house during the holidays, but you will find yourself not stressing over some of the decorating. After seeing my grandmotherís tree and realizing that every year I struggle with the lights, I purchased a full size artificial prelit Christmas tree.

I was always amazed at how the strands of lights would get so tangled even though they were packed away so carefully. Also, I no longer had to fight with figuring out how many strands were needed and how to hide the cords decoratively. I do not have to do that anymore. I simply put my prelit Christmas tree up, plug it in and put on the rest of the decorations and the holidays are much less bothersome in my household.

My husband appreciates the fact that he no longer has to spend at least an hour untangling and figuring out the strands of lights. I appreciate the fact that it frees up a few extra hours and allows me more time to relax or enjoy time with my family.

Getting a prelit Christmas tree was a great decision. After finding out that we have a prelit Christmas tree, several other friends decided to join us in the stress-free joys of decorating.

There are too many other things to stress about for the holidays, why does decorating the tree have to be one of them?

A photo Christmas ornament is a creative and easy way to add a personal touch to your Christmas tree. Glass blown ornaments are nice and some of the pewter miniatures on sale nowadays are quite beautiful, but for me the most important thing in Christmas decorations is to express yourself.

Photo Christmas ornaments allow you to do just that. They help you honor the things that matter you to most, your friends and family. They also make a fun and fascinating craft activity for the whole family.

The first photo Christmas ornament I ever had was store-bought. It was a gorgeous pewter photo frame hanging from a dainty little hook. I put a picture my girlfriend  in it, and really enjoyed the way it looked on the Christmas tree. It was a present from her, after all, and I wanted to always use it to express my love for her.

Since it was Christmas vacation I had a lot of time. I decided that it might be nice to make my own Christmas decorations. I set off to make a photo Christmas ornament of my own. I’m a pretty decent wood carver, and I was able to make a wooden frame over the next day or so. When I was done, it looked spectacular. I put a picture of myself in it and gave it to my girlfriend.

There are easier ways to make photo Christmas ornaments than this. I have a friend who makes them out of common household items. She is really into folksy art and finds a lot of easy and fun ways to make crafts of things that would otherwise be discarded.

Old sardine tins, Popsicle sticks, along many other packaging and wrapping are all well suited to making photo Christmas ornaments. With a little bit of paint and a lot of imagination, you can make beautiful finished crafts there are fit to be given out as personalized Christmas presents.

There are a lot of fancy photo Christmas ornament effects that you can only get from buying custom made Christmas decorations. Laser engraved Christmas ornaments, for example, can combine photographs with stunning glass etching. Still, whether you prefer a homemade aesthetic or something more professionally done, consider incorporating photos into your Christmas decorations this year.

You will be surprised by how much they add to your holiday celebration!

I am not even done digesting our Turkey dinner and I see Christmas decorations already getting setup, on the short drive home from my parents house.

You see, here on my block, people seem to keep putting up bigger and brighter Christmas decorations every year. Holiday decorations are anything but subtle here in the burbs. Christmas lighting will sometimes take up the whole yard and burn up countless kilowatts of power.

My neighbor Jim, for example, has a lighted inflatable snowman, a glowing reindeer carousel, and dozens of other lighted displays as well. So this year, I thought that I would get more involved. I wanted to go for a touch of class, using an understated Christmas display. That is why I decided to go to the local store and pickup some miniature Christmas lights.

Of course, I have been using miniature Christmas tree lights for years. I like to create a multi-tiered effect by using lights of different sizes and colors. I have a small strand of white light bulbs at the back, a smaller Christmas light strand halfway down the branches of my pine trees and some miniature Christmas lights near the tips of the limbs.

It does take a little while to set up, but the effect is gorgeous. I have always had one of the best Christmas trees in the neighborhood, even when you don’t factor in my impressive collection of Christmas ornaments.

Putting up the miniature Christmas lights on the outside of my house, however, seemed like a much bigger challenge. It wasn’t that it is hard to put up Christmas led lights on the roof — they are no harder to put up than any other strand of lights. The real challenge was doing the light display to create the maximum effect. I really wanted to create a look that would be noticed.

The key to a good miniature Christmas light display, after I found out after spending a few hours tinkering with different configurations, is to go for something understated. A lot of people decide to buy tons of miniature Christmas lights, believing that the cumulative effect will be more impressive than using fewer strands of normal lights.

However, in my opinion, if you are going for sheer volume and impressiveness, just use the normal lights! With miniature Christmas lights, subtlety is the key. Trace the outline of your house or make a few simple holiday designs, just keep it simple. The display will be less over the top, which makes it more magical, somehow.

Anyone can do bigger and brighter. It takes a little bit of creativity to do a more sophisticated display using miniature Christmas lights.