The Holidays are just around the corner, with its festive tasks of buying and wrapping gifts (and sometimes having to hide them from snoopy recipients) and decorating your home for the holidays.
 While gift-buying consumes the lion’s share of most budgets, holiday decorating doesn’t have to be expensive. A little ingenuity goes a long way!
Here are a host of ways you can decorate your home without spending a bundle this year:
Round up whatever teddy bears are living in your home and arrange them in a chair.
- Give them bright red ribbon neckpieces and pile small, brightly-wrapped packages and on their laps.
- Cut lacy snowflakes from heavy white paper and hang them in your windows suspended from red and green ribbons.
- Buy some small ornaments and hang them on your houseplants. Use skinny gold ribbon instead of hangers for an especially festive touch.
- Collect the prettiest pine cones you can find an spray paint them gold and silver, covering some completely with paint and letting some of the natural color show on others. Pile them into a basket, put the biggest, fanciest ribbon you can fin on the handle and set near your fireplace or on your porch near your front door.
- Buy a big, inexpensive clear glass bowl (flea markets, thrift stores, and dollar stores are good bets for these) and fill it with individually wrapped candy canes of peppermints for family and guests to enjoy.
- Make cookie cutter do dual duty: After you’ve finished your holiday baking, hang them on your tree.
- Gift wrap your front door with fancy foil paper. Glue a red ribbon diagonally from top to bottom.
- Make a collage of old Christmas cards, put it in an inexpensive frame and hang it on your wall.
- Use evergreen boughs liberally. If you don’t have any evergreen trees of your own, contact tree trimming services in your area and ask if you can get some for free. Make evergreen garlands and wrap them around stair and deck railings and drape them from your fireplace mantel, using plaid taffeta or red velvet ribbon to secure them with inside and red weatherproof ribbon outside.
- Group several white or ivory candles of different sizes and heights together in the middle of your coffee table on a fireproof plate. Stick brightly colored Christmas ornaments around and between them and edge the arrangement with small pieces of evergreen. Make sure greenery is far enough away that it won’t catch fire.
- Spend an evening with the kids stringing popcorn and cranberries to use as garland decorations on your tree.
- Make some spicy pomanders by sticking whole cloves into oranges and lemons, making sure to cover the entire surfaces of the fruit. When completed, pile into a large glass bowl and use as a centerpiece or wrap in lacy ribbon and hang in closets to lend a lovely holiday scent now and repel moths later.
- Tie bunches of cinnamon sticks with red, green or plaid ribbon. Use in arrangements of greens on mantels, end tables and elsewhere to lend an additional wonderful scent.
- If you have any old toys such as vintage train sets, arrange them around the base of your Christmas tree.
Implementing any or all of these holiday decorating ideas can be a fun experience that involves the entire family and perfectly expresses the spirit of the season.
