It’s cold out, and I’ve downed my share of Thanksgiving Turkey this past Thursday. Now it’s time to talk about holiday decor. My husband is an adamant anti-decorate for holidays until they are within a few weeks type of person. I personally get overwhelmed with seasonal decorating because it goes up and then almost immediately, or so it seems, comes right back down. Thank goodness we have a toddler hurling us into holiday cheer. ;-) Something that gets me excited about holiday decorating is the idea of making my own decor and creating it with friends and family.

Dried Orange Bunting

Last holiday season, Ashley Palmer dried orange slices and strung them up beautifully…that ignited a light in my grinchy decorating heart. I liked the ethereal, natural vibe. Simple, uncommercial, compostable (I’m a damn wannabe hippie.), and really good smelling. And I LOVE that I don’t have to store tons of stuff somewhere, like a looming annual task for me to find and disperse.

It seems like if getting a box of decor down stresses me out that this handmade stuff would really get my goat, but maybe there is something to MAKING the decorations each year. Of course having meaningful decor you use over and over, but also honoring the tradition of creating something each year, of slowing down enough to work with your hands and maybe feeling calm and quiet enough to be thankful for small things during such a busy season.

Since the baked oranges of last year, we’ve engaged in quite a bit more earthy, home decor making…artfully jabbing cloves into oranges, clipping greenery and florals from our yards, pressing flowers, making our own wreaths and dipping autumn leaves into beeswax.

Dipping Leaves into Beeswax…for Bunting

We dipped leaves in beeswax just a few weeks ago (before the freeze). Ash came to my (Daly’s) house, and we enjoyed oooing and awwing over the gorgeous leaves and trying to tempt our daughters to be craft nerds like us. It was a really good experience. And life is for that, don’t you think?