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Simply Christmas

© Peggy Hoehne

For many of us, the holidays become one more thing we have to try to manage between our jobs, our families, everyday household cleaning, cooking, and laundry. We have children's holiday programs to attend; parties occur more frequently, family and friends will be visiting.

There are presents to buy, cookies to bake, and a tree to trim. Where are you going to find the time to create those beautiful holiday centerpieces or table displays? How are you going to find the time and money to decorate your entire house to make it look festive and welcoming?

Since we are not all Martha Stewarts, and we don't all have time or money for complicated, multi task decorations, I have tracked down some simple holiday ideas we can all accomplish with very little crafting skill, time or money.

• Heavyweight Red or Gold cording draped over the mantle or a table looks festive combined with candles or other holiday decorations.

• Bring out all of your quilts and quilted pillows, especially those featuring red or green. Quilts give a warm, cozy feel to a room no matter what color they are. Throw one over the back of the sofa, drape on the chair, use one as a wall hanging, another as a tablecloth and one as a tree skirt. A heavy folded quilt can serve as a floor pillow near the fireplace.

• That summer sunflower picture on the wall just doesn't add the holiday feel? Gift wrap it. Choose a paper color that will coordinate with your decor, or stick with the ever popular red and green, and wrap the picture as though it were a gift. Run ribbon around it either diagonally or vertically and horizontally. Top it off with a big bow. Hang it back on the wall until after the holidays.

• Buy standard size pillowcases in red, put them over the back of your dining room chairs, let the top half hang down, and fold the two corners in toward the center in the back. Put in a couple of stitches to hold them together. Attach a large white pompom to the tip and your chairs will all be wearing Santa hats. For a change of pace, do the same thing with green pillowcases and attach a large jingle bell to the tip for an Elf hat.

• Spray paint some small branches or twigs with gold paint. Intertwine tiny white lights in the branches to light up a dark spot.

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