Decorating for the Holidays

Once the kids are back in school, it’s time to think about the upcoming holiday season, starting with Halloween, continuing on to Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah and New Year’s. It’s a busy season.

Halloween

If you’re looking for Halloween decorations, go no further than your local party store. Your local grocery store and drug store will also start to stock Halloween decorations. Of if you have a favorite hobby, you may be able to order Halloween-themed items from an online source.

Favorite Halloween decorations may include:

• Special lights
• Yard props—both animated and stationery
• Halloween stamps for those party invitations
• Candles and holders
• Candy containers

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving changes the theme from goblins and ghouls to turkeys and pilgrims, although you can build on the Halloween color of orange. In fact, you maybe able to add a fall wreath to the front door at Halloween and leave it up until you replace it with your Christmas wreath. Other favorite Thanksgiving decorations are:

• Pumpkin candle holders
• Corn husk table settings
• Mayflower centerpieces
• Leaf-printed coasters
• Pilgrim napkins

There’s so much you can do with Thanksgiving-themed decoration and the choices are endless. And the kid’s table offers even more opportunities to get creative in decorating for Thanksgiving. You can include kids in assigning them craft projects to keep them busy and help them join in the fun. Why not save some of them for the actual day when the kids arrive?

Hanukkah

The Hanukkah Menorah holding nine candles is probably the most well-known Hanukkah symbol. There is also a Hanukkah wreath and a dreidel with an interesting history behind it all. You may want to research the meaning of Hanukkah to fully understand why this holiday is so important to the Jewish people.

Christmas and New Year’s

Christmas decorations can be simple or extremely complex, depending on your level of investment and interest. Each year we see extreme home decorations from one part of this country to another on special televised shows. And homes aren’t the only thing decorated—some areas have special boat shows decorated for Christmas.

If you’d like a lavishly-decorated home but you don’t have the time, the energy, or the ability, you can hire a service to do it for you. For a fee, they can make your house look like a Christmas wonderland.

An important thing to keep in mind for the home-decorator is theming. You can see from viewing the behind the scenes of the decorating of the White House that theming is important—whether you choose an overall theme or a special theme from room to room. Your city may have specially-decorated historic homes so you might want to tour one of those to get some ideas on how to decorate your home. Television shows, magazines, and home decorating stores will all give you ideas.