Good Afternoon, Quilters!
Today we are going to discuss creative Christmas decorations, but before we get started…
Re-Charging My Batteries
In case you haven’t noticed, I took a three week leave of absence from blogging. This little break was unplanned and somewhat unintentional. I have been extremely busy and preoccupied with a wide variety of quilting and other pursuits. While I didn’t realize I needed a little extra down time, in retrospect it’s obvious that I did.
I needed to re-charge creatively and physically. (Read more about re-charging your creativity HERE)
Anyway…I’m sure YOU all understand.
Creative Christmas Decorations
One of the creative pursuits came in the form of a challenge. My husband suggested that we change all of our Christmas decorations this year. For the past 8-10 years, we have used the same decorations in the same places throughout the house. While we loved the decorations, we were in a decorating rut, using the same decorations in the same place every year.
Our goal was to buy just a few new decorations and re-arrange some of our old ornaments to create an entirely new look.
It was challenging not to use our tried and true favorites! But decorating was really fun this year-because it felt creative again!
We’ve already decided to do a new look next year!
Creative Ruts
I think many of us get in creative ruts-doing the same things in the same ways over and over. Whether it’s blogging, quilting, holiday decorations, wrapping, cooking….
Perhaps it’s time to take a break? Maybe not three weeks, but what about three hours?
Re-think your routines?
Try something new?
What about YOU?
Are YOU having fun this holiday season?
What is the best part of the holiday for YOU?
Is it wrapping presents? Baking? Making gifts?
We’d LOVE to hear how YOU are creative at Christmas!
Signed,
Your Rejuvenated Blogger,
Lori
PS…All tutorials, images and information are the property of Lori @ LoriKennedyQuilts.com. Feel free to re-blog, pin or share with attribution to LoriKennedyQuilts. For all other purposes, please contact me at Lori@LoriKennedyQuilts.com. Thank you!
35 comments
D Kirk
To say the least, we’ve had quite an “interesting” year (actually 11 months)! Yipes. Due to a variety of health issues we just put up a favorite garland and our little three foot artificial tree with four sets of lights and several ornaments that were gifts. Put a bow on the door and a few sprigs in a vase. That’s it. Very thankful & happy to be alive and recuperating.
One of my favorite parts is making our family cookies each year. They have to go in the tin for 2 weeks with an apple to help develop flavor. Yum. The most favorite part is getting together to eat, chat, share, and play.
Kathie Banks
Yes, Lori, I did notice that you were slacking, and had hoped you were in good health. It’s lovely to see you back online and it’s funny that you mention rethinking Christmas decorations. I have spent the last 8 Christmases using a one foot tree and child made paper decorations while I cared for 3 little grandsons from birth to kindergarten. Now that I no longer watch the 8 year old and twin 5 year olds while their parents work, I am finally able to break out my delicate china manger scenes and glass ornaments. It was like renewing friendships as I took each piece out of the chest they are kept in. Arranging them on the tree and around the house was pure joy, and seeing them everyday is such a pleasure that I don’t want to take them down just yet…Merry Christmas!
Marta
Fill a stocking and deliver to a new neighbor? Someone may be feeling alone. I bet it will make you feel better !! Helps me to get over the members we are missing this year.
Ellen
Good for you, taking a break, Lori! Christmas is tricky for me this year–I moved, and now live 5 hours away from family. I’m also now an empty nester, so am trying to figure out what Christmas traditions and decorations I enjoy, and which are no longer important now that the kids are grown and gone. No grandkids even on the horizon! The thing that I miss the most is hanging and filling the Christmas stockings I made for the kids out of red flannel and cow fabric–the only one who still wanted to do them was me. I loved being on the lookout all year for special little things to fill them with! When I had breast cancer a few years ago, I asked the kids to take over filling mine, and the next year, they decided they didn’t want to do stockings anymore. It’s hard to get jazzed up about Christmas decorating and baking when it’s just me!
Heartland HOney
My 95-year old mother is rapidly leaving us, checking in and out of reality. Knowing this we went all out on the Christmas decorations at her house, including a Christmas tree that is too tall for her room. It’s the biggest tree she’s ever had. Everything in her Christmas boxes are out and displayed in hopes of keeping her in the present.
On the other hand, I consider Christmas to be a sacred holiday and put out the Nativity Scene my mother made when I was a little girl and my father was stationed in Vietnam. It was my grandmothers set and I inherited it years ago. It brings back memories of my mother working in the ceramics room while I played with the other kids on base.
Merry Christmas to everyone!
Arvilla Trag
Bless you for your thoughtful care of your mom.
Elaine in North Texas
Last year we did not have a Christmas tree nor did we put up lights outside. I told my husband we were never doing that again. This year after surviving a brain aneurysm in September we have the tree up and decorated and the lights on the house and all of my same decorations and I just love them all. So glad our gracious Lord is letting me enjoy another Christmas with my family and friends. With Christmas only a week away, I wish many blessings on you all.
Marta
Amazing how our health issues seem to rearrange our priorities. I am grateful to have had 3 birthdays and now 3rd Christmas since my first chemo experience.
Made fudge tonight for the family and will finish up small quilt in the morning before we travel…We will be together on Sat. 21 this year. Five quilts going under their tree.
My phone camera is ready!!
Marta
Been saving an old chenille bedspread for years waiting for inspiration! Thanks! Will look for a pattern.
Dee
This is a “different” Christmas for us, too. Our third year in a new state after a whole lifetime in the previous one has brought many adjustments. Health issues for many in our family as well as economic ones, but blessings, too. We welcomed a new great grandson. We’ve moved closer to one daughter/grands and farther from the other/grands/greats. We have usually had to have two Christmas celebrations due to work schedules (firefighters, healthcare professionals), so these present challenges. As for decorating, We finally settled on a fairly pricey but beautiful artificial tree that would look well throughout the long season into January and not present a hazard and extra house cleaning problem of a live tree. Saved money in the long run and saved trees, too. I’ve made new table runners, wall hangings, throws, and added some new ornaments to old favorites such as the luminaries that light our walkway at night, the handmade ornament from grade school from each daughter, the snow people made by my elder daughter from my first chenille bedspread. My girls enjoy looking for their decorating memories and discovering what I’ve newly crafted or sewn. Their favorites are finding their old school ornaments on the tree and where I’ve assembled the crèche,
Merry Christmas. Blessings to All.
Arvilla Trag
Dee – we used to have a gorgeous 7′ tall artificial tree, but when we moved into our current home it simply did not fit in any of the rooms, so we sold it. Now we have six individual 2′ tall tabletop trees, each decorated with a different theme. There is the bird tree, the Looney Tunes tree, the Packers tree, etc. This allows us to have trees in every room of the house and minimizes the opportunity for the cats to knock over a tree with all the ornaments on it (I collected rare mercury glass ornaments for years). I must say I really miss the smell of a real tree, but I plan on compensating for that with real greens in strategic locations (read: where the cats cannot get to them). Merry Christmas!
Erin
Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year. I love to craft, sew and quilt and try to make things to add to our decorations each year. Then my husband got stage IV lung cancer, our daughter moved to Oregon, my dad moved into a nursing home, and other family members’ health problems abound. It’s been a rough year. I’ve halfheartedly decorated the house, worked on crafts, tried to finish a tree skirt, bought a gingerbread house to decorate. Everything is 1/2 done. Even the Christmas shopping. But last night we got a surprise! Two family members called and bought my daughter plane tickets to come home! She will be here tomorrow! Her sister lives close and will be home from school too. I don’t know how much will get done, how many decorations will get put up, how much will get cooked, and what will get wrapped. But our plan is to celebrate Christmas with Dad at the Nursing Home, and just enjoy being together.
Marta
Seeing the faces of loved ones, hugging their necks, hearing their voices on the phone…..that’s Christmas ! Thank you Lord for each safe visit and each precious phone call !
s5821140gmailcom
yes i noticed you weren’t here, and even more yes, i’m glad you’re back having enjoyed the recharge!
Arvilla Trag
I guess one could say I’m recharging my batteries involuntarily. First the top tension on my machine lost its mind in mid-Christmas gift, then I got a pinched nerve in my neck that has caused a 75% loss of motor control in my right arm. I have one wall hanging and two lap quilts to finish.
This year we will exchange quilted gifts on Groundhog Day.
My favorite part of Christmas? It could be the gift wrapping – I can – and have – spend hours decorating one package. It could be decorating the house – I love to make it look traditional and smell happy.
I love finding the perfect gifts for the few people I actually exchange gifts with. This year I got DH a new iPad and a Scottish broadsword with his clan crest on the guard. I got our critter sitter a Death Star waffle maker (she loves Star Wars), and our grandson a wild game cookbook (he hunts and loves to cook).
It is most likely my favorite part of Christmas is cooking for people I care about. I have made several batches of various brittles, key lime truffles and jellies, cranberry-cashew chocolate bars, and cookies. I am shipping several boxes of those goodies along with pate made from a lamb we butchered and our homemade maple syrup. UPS loves me. I think.
This year for dinner I am doing the Mrs. Crachet menu right out of “A Christmas Carol”. Roast goose with sage and onion stuffing, mashed potatoes, roast chestnuts, red cabbage, applesauce, gravy, and figgy pudding with toffee sauce.
God bless us, every one.
Lori – LOVE the new centerpiece!
Pam Hotle
You certainly deserve to take a well earned break! We all do!
I haven’t put out many decorations this year. Packing it all away after Christmas is so depressing for me that it makes me not want to put anything out. We will travel the 5 miles to my daughter’s house for all of our festivities. Santa bring presents to their house for my 2 little grandkids. Now, if my new little grand babies were coming for Christmas I would be more in the spirit. But since they live in France and China that won’t be happening.
Your husband helps with the decorating??? Wow!
Debbie Horton
It is nice to greet “old friends” at Christmas. So many family memories in the Christmas decos and baking recipes. I have been moving decos into different places the last few years and parting them out to other family members – we just got home from delivering (almost didn’t make it due to snow) Christmas quilts and Christmas heritage items to our daughter and family at Scott AFB, IL. And it did my heart good to see all of them during the holiday season.
Patricia Stein
Lori, I find all of your posts so refreshing
Thank you for this latest installment. Sometimes our own history is infused into the oft used ornaments and decorations.
I love, love, love your table-long jars with candy canes and holly etc. So simple and lovely. I too had a total knee replacement on Dec. 2nd. The only way to deal with the pain is to make things of cloth and of flour and sugar! They are good distractions!
Patty Stein
Ellen
Well I just had my seventh surgery of this year. And was crazy and replaced all the flooring in our house before Thanksgiving. So trying to get things back in place and recuperate. Won’t put a tree up this year since the children and grandchildren don’t come until end of Dec. But will put out a few decorations so they know Christmas came here too.
Maureen B., not in B.C. this Christmas
After the hellish health year my husband and I have endured (him a broken ankle, torn Quadraceps muscle, 11 weeks of non-weight-bearing hopping on a walker, and months of recovery) and me a heart attack and two bad falls, including a broken bone in my foot and eight weeks in an air cast, we are very glad to get the heck outta Dodge and go SOMEWHERE ELSE for Christmas. We’re in Fort Lauderdale awaiting embarking on a Caribbean cruise with a bunch of family aboard. A beautifully decorated ship, a fabulous Christmas dinner laid in, AND I DON’T HAVE TO DO ANY OF IT. A girl could get used to this! Once I got my quilts finished for our local crisis centre, and my baking done for friends, it was time for just us. I’m already relaxing, and no doubt my blood pressure has crept continually lower since leaving home.
Best wishes to all for a happy holiday season, whatever it entails, and whatever makes you happy.
Bette
Same decorations in the same places, year after year after year. I love decorating, my family loves the traditions, and it all brings me the proverbial “comfort and joy.” This is our 48th Christmas in our snug little home, and I treasure our traditions, knowing that they won’t last forever.
Sue
This year is extra special because we are first-time grandparents to a darling little girl! There has been nothing but excitement and joy since September.
I love decorating and my husband does as well. We change things up a little bit but not too much.
I like just about everything related to the holidays but probably most of all is making things. This year I made ornaments and kitchen towels for everyone. But I love baking too!
Happy Holidays everyone!
Donna
Beautiful decorations! Is the long green & white runner Swedish weaving? It’s really striking.
DebMac
6 houses in not quite 30 years of marriage means a lot of rethinking Christmas decorations. Some of mine are 3rd generation so really are part of the family and i would never think of not using them. Last year was our first in this house and I cried for 3 days while decorating. Nothing fit. I took pictures to avoid the having to think about it this year and while I did some minor adjustments, I was pretty happy with how things look. Too be truthful, I don’t like having to be creative with decorations at Christmas. After loosing my father, brother, 2 grandparents, a dog, and several other assorted relatives at Christmas just getting thru the holiday without too many tears is enough. Our 3 year old grandson will be with us again so that means some adjustments to accommodate him and not have too much temptation.
Marta
Our family has more sadness anniversaries in Dec than any other month! I have learned to say Hello to their memories on each of their days..Blessings for you this year!
worldpresscom986
I hope having a young person around will cheer you up. At 3 years old I’m sure he will keep you busy!
Laura Love
I can’t imagine my husband even caring about Christmas decor much less wanting to change it up.
I rather like bringing out my “old friends” each year.
Suzanne Chaffee Swanson
I do this every year! I simply put the stuff in Tupperware Tubs, take it out and shuffle it every year! It is a creative endeavor I thoroughly enjoy! The runners, tablecloths and such get mixed up and placed in different places. Enjoy the season and the process with loud Christmas music and a little hot cocoa or a latte!
Debbie
I always look forward to getting all my treasured decorations out each year. As much as I love it I do have some thoughts about changing things up next year. I think my favorite part of the Christmas rush is baking. I may be having some difficulty getting in the Christmas spirit but as soon as I start baking with favorite Christmas music playing I’m instantly transported and feeling the joy of the season.
Lorraine Doyno Evans
We’ve had a lot of house projects this year and the house is in disarray right now so we made a decision not to put up the tree this year. Since it’s only the two of us, it’s not such a big deal. We all need a break once and awhile.
Mary Green
I had knee replacement surgery 11-11 and knew I would not be up to decorating, baking, or even cooking for quite some time. We decided ahead of time we would have the small tree (hubby’s thing”) and a wreath on the door…DONE! I did put an impromptu arrangement on the DR table that is very pleasing – clean and uncluttered.
It has been very liberating. Now mind you, it is just the two of us in our 70’s and our only family live 2K miles away, with no plans to gather this year. And that’s fine with us.
I know I will appreciate seeing my lovely Christmas decorations in Dec 2020, as I decide which ones to pass on to another home.
Rethinking ornaments as well as habits and reactions is a good thing. Thank you, Lori, for giving me this opportunity to share what I’ve been realizing as hubby cooks, cleans, and lovingly tends to my needs. Tomorrow is our 48th anniversary and this is the first time we have had to reverse roles. This has been a blessing.
Marta
Mary Green… bless you in your healing time.. We will celebrate 53 years next week. Most of family lives hundreds and hundreds of miles away. An inherited ceramic tree is our tree for a few years now. The children like to have celebrations at home and thus we travel when we can to celebrate with them. I love baking their favorites to take with us. I am sewing almost round the clock these days to get 5 quilts, some placemats and pot holders, 3 white furry muffs, and a few boho purses for teens, all ready for everyone. Today we obtained pounds of shelled pecans to take also.
Last evening a local church group visited our neighbor who is a disabled vet who had recent surgery. The neighbors gathered on his porch with him. The church group stood around the porch and sang Christmas Carols to us all ! It was heavenly!
I feel like we had Christmas already and the rest of the season will be frosting on the cake!! Merry Christmas!
Pamela Wall
Oh my goodness! I have that exact same candle holder. I love this idea! Thank you for all you do for this quilting community all year long!
Janet Licari
I use the same decorations in the same places every year. Some I look forward to seeing again after their long sleep 😉 I think decorating is my favorite part but I also like the wrap. Trying to get caught up and ready in time. Merry Christmas to you all.
Rosie
This post couldn’t have come at a better time. I’m in a brand new absolutely lovely dream home with all my old Christmas decoration, which I will admit is overwhelming. Where do I display the nutcrackers properly? Will all of the Santas fit in the area or do I have to separate them? Which Christmas tree do I put up and will it work in the space? I have procrastinated enough and finally I am now decorating, which is something that I love to do. It’s funny how just starting with baby steps, I now can’t wait to place all my old beloved decorations in new ways which is so exciting. Thank you for not making me feel like a Scrooge and my batteries are all charged up again!
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