Home for the Holidays
Christmas Decor Rediscovered.

Christmas is coming , I can tell ,its only the first week in November and one early bird house in our street  has had their Christmas lights up for almost two weeks now . We have lived in Canada for twenty years and yet we still haven’t gotten over how all you North Americans go such a bundle on outdoor Christmas decor. In Britain where I come from apart from the odd Christmas tree you’d see displayed in some “show offs”  front room window , that was as far as it went, They would of  thought you raving if anybody had thought to extend their Christmas decor outside with garden lights or lights in trees and bushes as they do here. That’s not say that we Brits don’t decorate for Christmas of course we do ,we just keep it all inside the house . Oh I also aught to point out in Britain wreaths are just for funerals not items of holiday decor.

I don’t know if things have changed in these respects since we left its something I’ve never thought to ask about, but on the next email to mum I will ,I’m curious now. Britain had never heard of Halloween or proms either but I believe they’re beginning to be popular among the younger people.. That’s not to say English people don’t enjoy the spectacles created with beautifully lighted displays of outdoor Christmas decor indeed they flocked by the thousands by car and coach to London and other big cities where the larger  department stores put on festive displays of lights and holiday decoration within their window spaces of course not outdoors.
But If you wanted to see outdoor Christmas decor that even came close to rivaling Chevy chases house in Christmas Vacation you had to visit a small Lancashire seaside town called Blackpool, to see what was referred to by everybody back then as the “Blackpool illuminations”

You could go in your own car or on a coach trip .the place was usually heaving for all of December and the first half of January the sidewalks were choc a bloc  with sightseers and Christmas shoppers, cars and coaches were bumper to bumper along the streets with their passengers peering with craning necks to catch glimpses of the animated lights through the breath fogged windows of car or coach . For the best view of the giant spectacle of outdoor Christmas lights Blackpool put on each year even if it meant battling the cold winds that blew in off the north sea and the  legendary English rain  ., your best bet was to park up somewhere if you could find a spot, and walk the mile or so of brightly colored lights and various tableau’s of outdoor Christmas decor set up and illuminated  by Blackpool city council each Christmas.

Just ask any Brit from northern England  of about my age what they remember most about Christmas as a child most will answer “the illuminations” as those colorful twinkling lights will still live large in the childhood memories of many of my generation. Blackpool to this day still “illuminates ” the mile of roadway known as the Golden mile , but to today’s generation its not the big attraction it used to be .

Possibly its the Brit heritage that still has more of a grip than we thought but we don’t do anything with outdoor Christmas decor  ourselves at the front of the house. I recall throwing a couple of strings of lights on a shrub one year but it was such a pathetic attempt it was laughable that much so that I went out and brought them back in  .I don’t really think its that  British sense of restraint that’s to blame ,I actually think its where we live .None of the people who live on our street put on extravagant displays of outdoor Christmas decor after all isn’t the main reason you do that kind of thing, is to draw the attention of passers by so that they stop and  stare and point and say wow just look at that one as they pass ,and to compete with the neighbors of course. Well there are no passers by on our street, it is a dead end at both ends the road only being accessible by a bridge that spans one of the old Welland canals . There’s no reason for people to be on the street unless they live here ,usually a happy very quiet neighborhood  but sometimes like at Christmas or Halloween there’s a price to pay in that we feel left out and a little forgotten we got not one single trick or theater this Halloween, its always been poor show in the sixteen years we’ve lived here its never broken a dozen ,but zero.!

For the last several years we’ve not decorated for Christmas with outdoor Christmas decor  or even inside because for the last five or six years we’ve gone away to Florida at Christmas so there seemed no point the kids are teens now and the anticipation of the arrival of father Christmas is long gone , we didn’t even bother to decorate a tree. But this year for various reasons we’ll be home for the holidays and from somewhere I’m going to have to dredge up  some vestige of Christmas spirit as it really doesn’t feel a lot like Christmas not to any of us , for me it really hasn’t ever since the kids got too old to believe in Santa ,my husbands worried about his job ,my eldest daughter just started at university this year has exams that don’t end until Christmas eve so she is and rightly so only concentrating  on them my other daughter has always hated shopping in general and Christmas shopping with a passion .. But they all want to do Christmas or more to the point they want me to do Christmas and put them in the mood great well whose going to put me in the mood I thought I might discover some Christmas inspiration or some yuletide cheer somewhere on the net with some crafty Christmas project or some awe inspiring Christmas decor theme I felt compelled to emulate …………..   but not so far , or nothing major  a couple of things to which I’ve thought oh that’s quite nice ,  but nothing that’s made me feel I had to run out and buy it  or create it instantly myself.

The only things that have inspired me  have just inspired me with envy as they are arrangements of outdoor Christmas decor or interior  festive accents that my home physically can’t carry out one of the things I look and sigh over every year are houses that look like this. The colonial style columns the plantation shutters ,the attic windows .My house is a raised ranch style bungalow, so unless Santa can work some Christmas magic or the house spontaneously grows an extra floor one night it can never look like this. or be decorated like this.

Ok perhaps not all is lost perhaps my Christmas enthusiasm has begun to be roused just a little  bit in my search of images on the net  to find one that most closely depicted my vision of the perfect Christmas entrance way that I can’t have , see second image , but imagine instead red bows and lights added to the garland on the banister rail a few red balls on the tree and one or two pressies under it wrapped in red wrapping paper. Living in a bungalow I do of course have stairs but no curving wooden handrail and there is of course no entrance way from outside so that the flow and style of the outdoor Christmas decor can be continued on in the hallway and through into other rooms.. But some images that did inspire me and make me stop and think, that well ,when hubby eventually completes our basement renovation and the handrail gets put back on the wall where it belongs  that next year I might try decorating the basement stairs as in the first picture (below) as this is exactly the kind of stairs that I have leading  down to the basement., there’s a glass door at the top of my stairs not a nice plant shelf but I could substitute a wreath or two on the glass door.

Just loved the other two ideas to decorate the basement stairs , not many ideas around for decorating plain old basement stairs let alone implementing Christmas decor,  but I think I would substitute presents and parcels for pillows.. The third idea I’ve actually seen used in an old English pub and forgotten all about it until I saw this image. ,And it is so easy to do  ,you  don’t even have to have word art on every riser you could alternate with some decorative squiggle (sorry! just been told that the actual proper term is cursive artifact) well I’m sure you all knew that already.. The word art could be created well just by hand if your hand was steady enough or if your like me you’d probably be better off using a stencil . The problem with a stencil for word wall art is first off finding one in the font you want or having to buy several sets of alphabets and make your own but that takes ages as your waiting for some letters to dry so you can reuse the stencil .You could always go with vinyl lettering thats so popular right now , but all that I have used have always fallen off  sooner or later, and those were not in a place of heavy traffic like the stairs. So I think best way to go  and it will cost you almost  nothing is print and cut out your own lettering  from regular printing paper or cardstock and decoupage it onto the stair risers and then varnish it with a couple of coats of clear spay varnish.

I like the simple look when it comes to accents and decor whether it be interior home decor or outdoor Christmas decor my watch word is always simple  ,at least in aspect ,I don’t like frills and flamboyancies in decor ,I find them hard to live with, I also feel they too soon become dated looking as fashions come and  go, .that is not to imply that the indoor and outdoor accents I select or personally create to adorn my home are not often both unique and creative or sometimes intricate to make..

I don’t know if those candles on the first mantle are real or not  but I would choose the battery powered ones found at most dollar stores they  look quite real when not inspected from very close at hand and you don’t have to worry about fires started in greenery if you leave the room, they are not only safe but offer you the opportunity to add a light element to your Christmas decor arrangements that are not within convenient reach of a plug socket.
Often items of seasonal decor can be had at your local dollar store or liquidation center so don’t overlook these type of stores in favor of the much more expensive craft and hobby stores such as Michaels.. The dollar store is a great source for bargain decor pieces that on their own or left in their original form might on first glance appear a little tacky but with a little ingenuity and creativity  and a few  craft supplies which can also be found at the dollar store. In most cases you can create stunning unique one a kind indoor and outdoor Christmas decor  or home and garden decor for season with just a little home grown talent you don’t always have to fork out the big bucks that the retail chain stores charge for ready made pieces of seasonal decoration.