festiveness for the rest of us

Usually I am not one to really go all out and decorate for Christmas.  Actually for the past 7+ years Steve and I have really done nothing in the form of holiday decorating.

Since I was hosting my staff Christmas party at our house this year, I thought that it probably wouldn’t be acceptable to be a total grinch.  This would have to be the year that we do it up (just a little) for Christmas and the holidays.

My mission with this started off with buying some cedar and pine boughs from the corner of Main St. and Ottawa.  They had a fresh and wonderful collection of cedar boughs.  The next stop was to Gage park to collect some pine cones for table centre pieces, which were actually strangely hard to find. I also picked up some tangerines, cloves and red ribbon from the store to make some deliciously scented orange and clove ornaments.

With the sun setting on Gage park, and the temperature dipping we got home and warmed ourselves with some hot chile cocoa and marshmallows before getting down to business.  I was a bit of a neighbourhood sleuth/thief as I clipped a couple mini branches of red berries from the house down the street.

My friend Lis, who was visiting for the day, helped to make our tangerine clove decorations.

A few final decorative Christmas pieces came from my parents house.  I visited them a few days back and dragged out from under their stairs, an old box of Christmas decorations.  My favourites were these quilted ornaments.  Although, we did decorate this year, we haven’t ventured into the world of Christmas trees yet, so I hung the quilted ornaments on picture frames, and door knobs.

I even strung some popcorn cranberry garlands, and made little cedar and pinecone centre pieces for the tables. I admit having a little Christmas spirit did me no harm.  Maybe we’ll even move on to a little Charlie Brown Christmas tree for next year.