As middle aged women, it’s interesting to look back on Christmases of our childhood and reflect back on how they looked and may have influenced how we decorate and celebrate today…in Ginger’s home I remember magic. She decorated in a traditional, New England style with elegant formality and great attention to detail…

Fresh white pine roping wrapped both indoor and outdoor railings, graced the fireplace mantle, and adorned chandeliers…cranberry candles of various sizes were abundant, all with decorative candle rings…clear white lights sparkled in the windows, and a spotlight shone on a simple door wreath…for our annual Christmas Eve open house, the lights were always low, the candles were lit, and my parents, sister and I all dressed to the nines in ivory satin, black velvet, and royal stewart tartan…I loved everything about it!

Decorating for Christmas has always been something I enjoyed, but over the years, when you are very busy with the responsibilities of work and motherhood, it can be very tiresome…some years of late I could have easily gone without…

Fast forward to 2020! Well, in this year of the pandemic, we certainly have plenty of time to spend on holiday decor and admittedly, it has been fun again, really fun. 🙂

Starting with the tree, I opted to create a grouping of three…a regular green tree with white lights, a shorter flocked tree with colored bulbs, and a slim mid-sized metallic tree…all are ‘faux’ so no watering required and no messy pine needles!

As for the outside of the house, we decided to kick things up here too…normally we do a wreath on the door and not much else…

This time we put wreaths on the windows, wrapped the front door with white pine roping, and let the pineapple shine! As for bows, I’ve always preferred the deeper shades of red for a more elegant look…

My favorite part was creating this arrangement! Once you have your color scheme chosen, you place a block of oasis (foam) into the urn, then start inserting the floppy greens, then add the items of different heights and colors…the tall gold twigs and pinecones work nicely with the door knocker…

Beautiful and I made it myself! 😉

The finishing touch was Peter’s job – setting up the spotlights…now all we need is a sprinkling of snow!

These photos were taken and this post was written three short weeks ago. Since then, as some of you know, my father and sister were both admitted to the hospital with Covid, and both are still there now…

No number of trees, no amount of lights, no sprinkling of snow will put smiles on our faces until we know that they are both out of the woods and on a path to return home. As you might expect, this is more difficult for my 88 year old father, but we are still hopeful that he will pull through.

Family is everything.

Stay well. Live well. Enjoy the NOW.