Taking down the Christmas decorations is bitter sweet. I’m glad that the task is done but I miss the Christmas tree lights and all of the fun decorations. I struggle to decide when to take everything down for that same reason. Leave them up longer and get sick of them or end up with pine needles literally everywhere, or take them down too early and miss them more than I probably should. It’s a careful balance.
Every January I also struggle with how to fill the space after I take everything down. I want to leave the same joy in the wake of things that have been packed away into boxes. So I ask myself “what decorations can I use to make the home feel warm and cozy for wintertime?” This year I answered with three things, candles, faux greenery, and pine cones. Winter is a decoration season in my house that is separate from Christmas. They have a bit of overlap, but the stuff that is specifically Christmas disappears.
I actually kept up most of the decorations in our family room because they are a wintry theme. I did rearrange and move things around to fill some of the empty spots from the things that I took down, like the tree and random Santa/ornament knickknacks.
I love how the dining room turned out this year for the holidays. The only thing I took down were the small wreaths on the chairs. Truth be told, they could have stayed up because they have plain winter vibes but they kept falling down and I got tired of fixing them, so down they went.
On the server, I started with center and arranged a bunch of faux greenery twigs in a vase (with a lid, is that a jar?) as the focal piece.
Then I placed similar items together to create an appealing vignette. On the right side I used variety of trees that I’ve collected over the years.
On the other side I used candles and mixed a few different metals (and textures) together. Candles are always a good idea because they are an easy way to warm up a room, even when they aren’t lit. Plus, it’s an inexpensive decoration that you can move from room to room. In fact, you don’t have limit these decorations to your dining room, or to a single season. You can use these same principles in lots of ways where ever you have space to create a vignette.
I kept the centerpiece on the dining room table very simple this year. Usually I adorn entire middle of the table with lots of fresh flowers and other things, but this year I opted to go with one item in the middle. It’s super easy to pile up a bunch of pine cones in any container that you have handy.
I added a taper candle on each side of the centerpiece. I bought them from Target just before the holidays. When creating a table centerpiece, the most important tip that I can offer is to make sure that you can see the person sitting across from you. There is nothing worse than trying to finagle your seat or tilt your head to look around tall things that are in the way. Tapers don’t count as tall because they are so thin. 😉
I used a white and gold color theme for the table settings. The gold touches help to tie in the gold pieces on the server.
How are you decorating your home after the holidays?
