A Homemade Holiday

We are going to experience our first snow during the holidays here in Wisconsin. I have to say hearing the Christmas carols near Thanksgiving at least felt more authentic in the frozen Midwest as opposed to the balmy South. Still I hate this rush to move from holiday to holiday. The retail stores seem to lay in wait like a cat ready to pounce on every ounce of holiday sentiment they can wring out of you. It doesn't matter if it is Christmas, Hannukah, Solstice or Kawanza, retailers are equal oppurtunity exploiters. The more holidays people celebrate the more target audiences it seems.

With that in mind, I was almost relieved when my husband had discovered he'd left all of our boxes of decorations at his mother's house. We had managed to get the tree up, but had no lights or ornaments to decorate with. So my oldest son and I got to work. Thanks to some quick searches for printable ornaments we got some neat Celtic designs, some snowflakes, bells and other cool designs. He spent a good bit of time coloring and I did a little coloring of celtic knots myself. Afterwards we found some of our card board recycling and cut backing for the ornaments. With a little glue, creative hole punching and yarn we had wonderful and inspired ornaments. To add a little more shiny to the tree I also pulled out some of our antique cookie cutters and hung them on the tree with yarn.

This is our first tree without some lights and ornaments with "history." We haven't yet hung out strings of popcorn and cranberry, but we've found our own simplicity and satisfaction in decorating. It feels simple, homemade, and not the product of some retail design. My son is very proud of his efforts and has claimed them for his own one day. This is one small way we are bringing more Light back into our holiday festivities!