Decorating for the Holiday Season

With the holiday season fast approaching, you may find yourself stressing about your current inventory of decorating supplies. Holiday decorating can prove to be very expensive. Buying new decorations each year or trying to keep up with your neighbor can be quite costly. There are ways to keep your decorating budget down while presenting a nice holiday display for all to see.

The first thing to consider is all of those decorations you have cluttering up your basement from the past few years. Now is a good time of year to check these items out. Sure, last year’s Santa may have a grey beard from winter grime but that is nothing that a little soap and water can’t take care of. Get out your old yard decoration and wash them up. Do it now in the early fall instead of waiting until the middle of November when it is much colder outside.

As for your holiday lights, it is always a good idea to test these before hanging them up. There is nothing more frustrating than getting all the way to the edge of your roof, plugging in the lights, and having a six foot section not lighting up. It would have been so much easier if you would have just tested them before hand and saved yourself some work. Additionally, try to test them sometime in mid-November because many stores have them on sale the day after Thanksgiving at tremendous discounts. It is wise to always keep a supply of replacement bulbs on hand along with a light tester.

For future reference, the day after Christmas is one of the best days to go shopping for holiday décor. Everything is marked down and the stores continue marking down their holiday merchandise in order to make room for spring merchandise. If you wait long enough, you may be able to get a $100 tree for as little as $10. The odds of finding this kind of deal are rare, but you may just come across one if you persevere and keep shopping.

One last tip; if you find yourself low on cash this year as many tend to be around the holidays, check out your local thrift store. You can find lots of great deals on stuff people gave away. You can also look for Freecycle groups in your area. Freecycling allows you to post what you are looking for and others in the group can respond if they can help you out. If all else fails, have a craft day with the kids and make some meaningful decorations that you will cherish for years to come.