10-minute Christmas Decorating - Outdoors.
10 Minutes
Easy
"Oh, the weather outside is frightful" - and I hadn't put up a single decoration - and the grey weather was getting me down. Instead of "merry and bright" we had "dreary and dark".
Let's start with an after, shall we? So much more cheerful.
This pot is so sad the gnomes hid their faces
After 11 years here, I've resigned myself to the garden being flower free all winter, but I do need a little something in my pots by the doors and outside my kitchen on the balcony. But it's not easy to find color for your pots for the wet and cold months. I do like pansies and make use of them, but they don't really say "holidays" to me. I saw a fun little tutorial on Molbak's Facebook page, and it gave me some inspiration. (I can't find the original video) We have had so much wind-fall that I knew I could fill most of my pots with fallen branches and I had saved some left-ever fake berries from old wreaths. On one of my (frequent) trips to Costco, I grabbed some wreaths and a garland, and stopped at the local nursery for a few flowers and greenery. I came back and cleaned out the pots, followed their directions, more or less, and in just a few minutes, my pot went from sad and dead to pretty and festive.
First the dogwood stems
Add in the windfall branches
Now the gnome is happy!
Add the wreaths and the garlands, and it really didn't take much more than 10 minutes to do the whole thing. I was so inspired by the difference that I decided that the barn needed a little holiday makeover too. I raked away some of the fallen greens, pulled the frosted geraniums - they stayed nice until mid-November! - tied up the pencil holly (it's never been the same since the one year we had so much snow and I neglected to shake it out of the branches. Sorry! I'm a California girl - what did I know from snow damage?) added the branches, a few berries, and temporarily replaced the grape stem wreath with a Costco one. I even brought down a red faux-berry wreath to decorate the playhouse for a little added color. Again, only 10 minutes to go from dreary to merry!
Not very merry
Wreath on the barn
He refused to look at the "birdie". I think he thought he was in trouble since I told him to "stay" so he wouldn't look at me. Bless his heart.
Now if you were to come up to my house, it would look festive and like we were ready for Christmas. Of course, I couldn't let you in as then you would see we don't have our tree yet and the opened plastic bins look a little like Christmas threw up in the house, but we look ready from the outside, and that's a start! Also, I'm playing Christmas music so... "it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas"! Or a little. Whatevs.
One thing I did have already set up isn't specifically for Christmas, but since I'm so behind I'm going to count it. Have you see those lovely hot chocolate beverage centers people set up in their homes? Some are quite involved, which is nice but exactly how much hot chocolate are you drinking in winter?? In fall I set up a little basket with hot drink materials. And before you start in, I KNOW that home-made hot chocolate and apple cider are both easy to make AND better tasting, and I have spent the time to make them, but both of my girls prefer the mixes so I lost that round. I just have some mixes and small whisks, stirring peppermint sticks, sugar and honey sticks, herbal teas, tiny marshmallows, and some sipping chocolate for those with a little more refined palate. It looks so cheerful, and I often have a hot drink waiting for the high-schooler when she gets home. I even keep some of those paper hot-drink cups with lids on hand in case we get some snow so the kids can warm up outside with hot drinks - and to make it feel more authentically like Starbucks, I charge them 5 dollars and then write their name wrong on the cups!
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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2 comments
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I am obsessed with your barn and playhouse!
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@Hannah V Thanks Hannah! They are my favorites too!
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