A Decorating Rest Between the Seasons

I know that, officially, it’s still fall, but once Thanksgiving is over, I’m ready to put away my fall decorations. I’m tired of looking at dried grasses, leaves and gourds, but it’s still too early for me to decorate for Christmas. So my family home is taking a decorating rest between the seasons as I hunt for winter decorations in nature.

My family room has returned to its family/travel theme, with photos of the Grand Canyon and hot springs at Yellowstone National Park. Soon, I’ll mat and frame some family portraits and a photo I took of the Grand Teton mountain range that I never got around to framing.

While on our walk today, I found some interesting sticks to, um, stick in a vase on my family room bookcase. I plan to hang blue and silver Christmas balls on them, and once Christmas is over, I’ll adorn them with little sweaters that I’ll knit from Knit Picks Snow Day kit.

The best thing about using gourds and leaves for decorating is that I don’t plan on keeping them, so I don’t need to find a place to store them and spend time and energy packing them away. Not only will they rot before next fall gets here, but we don’t have much storage space, so this is a good system for us. So I launched most of my gourds out the back door to see what grows from their seeds next year.

But I didn’t have the heart to chuck them all into the yard – some were in perfect condition, plus my house started looking empty without all the fall decorations. So I saved a few gourds that remind me of my little, three-member family and left the bittersweet wreath above the baker’s rack.

In the coming weeks I’ll share my Christmas and winter decorating ideas. In my family home, we only keep our Christmas decorations up for about three weeks. So I also incorporate seasonal decorations from nature that I’ll leave up for the duration of winter. I have a feeling it’s gonna be a long one, so I’d better come up with something good.

Happy seasonal decorating!