After The Tree

I don't know how your family tradition goes, but normally we don't take our Christmas tree down until after the New Year. This year was different. We got snow the day after Christmas and my three young, very active boys find themselves confined inside a little bit more than usual. Not a problem, except we have a very small house for 5 people. So the tree came down just to make a few more feet of playing space. Not to mention, the boys got balls and shooting toys for Christmas. So yes, all my fragile decorations also had to go away. I have no intention of putting my mom's nativity scene in the line of fire, literally.

Do I have an empty house now?

No. I love decorating. And my boys always look toward the changing of the seasons when I bring out new decorating elements. With it being too early to bring out the Valentine's decorations, it was time to expand on my winter (post-Christmas) decorations.

Exterior snowflake lights were part of the lighting on the tree this year. So once I boxed all that away, I left the snowflake lights out and hung them from my ceiling with the white hooks I permanently installed in my ceiling.

For in my home, I got the idea of decorating my living room ceiling from my sisters. It started with one sister hanging air blown birthday balloons and streamers with thumb tacks from the ceiling. Another sister put up Christmas balls on her ceiling. What haven't I put on my ceiling? I've even done a Valentine's Day pillow with my boys' names on it.

From the years I decorated in venues in the greater Seattle area, you learn how you can or cannot hang items, especially overhead. And that is where using items that are secure and installed once comes in great use. You have less chance of things falling on you and switching out decor items becomes quick and fuss free. White hooks in the ceiling are perfect for in home party decorating because they blend in with the ceiling, you measure out your spacing once, and then you can change out your ceiling decor in about 15 minutes, instead of over and hour of pushing thumb tacks in your ceiling, figuring out how to keep items from falling off the tacks, and having to re-space your items because of holes

For anyone who is decorating your own larger event in a venue (hall, lodge, hotel ballroom, barn, wherever your fancy takes you) make sure to ask questions about what items you can and cannot use in hanging your own decorations. You will find that push pins/tacks, your own hooks, command strips and other commonly used items are not allowed. I can totally respect this rule, because these items can destroy walls and fixtures really quick when there are a handful of weddings each weekend and during the week. Even though you may think that this forbidden list takes care of everything, I promise you it does not. There are other ways of rigging overhead decorations. Depending on what you want done, you might just have to hire the professional decorators for this element for your event. But you might just be surprised at what rigging features the venue might already have in place. For example, the decorating company I worked with, years ago, had a relationship with a venue that is a historic building. Through the relationship, and the decorating package established between the two companies, specific rigging was installed. It allowed for certain elements to be used for weddings, while maintaining the integrity of the building with very minimal damage. Knowing this feature, it opens the door for a conversation with the venue sales person or manager if this is something you can use for your event. But this also puts more on your to-do list (making sure you have a qualified/venue approved person doing the decorating, you have all the equipment to safely do the work, and several other little things that need to be in place). Not impossible, just reworking your thinking to problem solve in this area.

In honor of this snowflake post-Christmas theme, and our recent snow fall, I am promoting this Let It Snow SVG cut file. Until the end of January 2022, you can download this file for free. Go to SVG drop down, select Winter, select Let It Snow.