It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas …I passed several cars with Christmas trees tied to the tops today, and several people in my neighborhood had their Christmas decor up even before Thanksgiving. I’m on team #oneholidayatatime here so now that Thanksgiving has wrapped up, this weekend we start decking the halls here. Next week we’ll spend most of it decking OTHER peoples halls.  

We’ve just finished the last of the clean up from the Thanksgiving extravaganza here yesterday…

We came, we saw, we baked, we cooked, we ate. We generally made a colossal mess of the kitchen, but it was worth it! We made a classic pecan pie, and a mince pie with hard sauce. Disclaimer: I know Mince Pie is not on the greatest hits list, but it is my Mom’s favorite for Thanksgiving, so Mince Pie it is! Both were made with this magical Vodka pie crust…flaky, super easy, and delicious.

We also made individual sweet potato soufflé casseroles baked in hollowed out orange halves - this was inspired by my friend Leslie posting a picture of her family favorite version and I thought it was such a fun idea!

And of course, it would not be Thanksgiving without our famous Pecan Apricot Cranberry Sauce. There were all the usual suspects as well…turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, squash, turnip (again, because of Mom), and…green beans…because we are pretending this is a healthy and nutritious meal😂.

and we are enjoying the laaaast of the lucia rolls today…

And the diva is shopping for more smart plugs for our Christmas lights (yes please!!) and trying to talk me into buying an air fryer. I am generally one-trick-pony-appliance averse…but on demand “healthy”ish fries is a big draw…

The sweet white mini-cyclamen plants that graced each place setting at our Thanksgiving table, will move into the Christmas season with us.  

These little 2 1/2” pots don’t hold moisture for very long, and the flowers are quite the drama queens when they are thirsty, flinging themselves south in protest, but at least they perk up quite quickly when their demands are met!

Today I’m hanging these beautiful wreaths that my friend Mila made to order.  She cut the greens this week so I have high hopes that these will last until my preferred take down date which always ends up being well into February…Valentines wreath anyone? 

I do try to get my Christmas decor down before something decides to nest in it.  I’m not always successful - we have a lot of intrepid nature here, and I find it hard to talk myself into exterior redecorating when the winter temperatures are hovering in the arctic range.  I’ve occasionally had to live with completely crispy and unattractively brown cut boughs adorning my entrance until the baby birds fly the nest!

Since I’m hanging the wreaths on the front porch columns on either side of the door, a wreath on the door would be redundant, so I’m hanging a swag of mixed greens topped with a matching bow on the door instead.

Swags of mixed greens will also decorate the two lamp posts along the driveway.

The black faux cast iron urns flanking the entrance will be filled with seasonal cut greens along with some white willow branches, and giant pinecones I have on hand. And possibly something red if I can remember where I put them!

I made bows out of 3 different patterns of wired ribbon. I like generously sized bows and the best way to get unique ones with an interesting mix of patterns is to make them yourself - it’s really easy and if you buy the wired ribbon at a wholesale club like Costco or BJ’s, it is really inexpensive too - you can’t beat the ribbon prices there!

Here is a quick video of how I made these bows:

And voila! Here is the beribboned door swag that the above bow went on!

Well, I ran out of daylight, and I can’t feel my fingers anymore since I’ve been working in the freezing rain, but the wreaths and swags are up on the entrance and lamp posts. 

And I’ve pulled the dead mums, what’s left of the kale (something didn’t get the memo it was ORNAMENTAL kale), pumpkins and ivy out of the front pots.  I’m salvaging the ivy to bring inside and see if I can keep it alive over the winter since it is wildly healthy and there is a LOT of it!  By the end of the season it had grown so much, the pedestal urns looked a bit like Cousin It?!

I am currently storing all the plants I’ve rescued from the outside for winter in my bathtub, for lack of a better place. This ‘winter plant spa’ is probably not a long term solution, but that massive pile of ivy on the lower right is what just came out of my front pots!

Tomorrow, hopefully, I’ll finish the arrangements of mixed cut greens and branches in the urns. Remember these shrubs we planted in the middle of them when we did the fall entrance decor? Those are staying as the center tall thing for the winter iteration.

And I’ll add some garland and ribbon over the front door and add mixed evergreens to spill out of the window boxes for winter as well..which means I’ll be back on a ladder again…wish me luck!

I’ll add an update to this post with more pictures when I get everything outside finished!

UPDATE:

Today was sunny but arctic..at least it felt like it to me! Even so, I wanted to get finished up with the exterior before the dirt in the urns freezes too solid to push the greens into. Soooo…I bundled up and persevered! I’m delighted with how the urns came out and I love love love the drippy greens of the cedar garland mixed with the pine and boxwood garland over the door.

I like my containers and window boxes a little abundant and ‘wild’ looking rather than formal and restrained. I was starting with urns with the evergreen shrubs in the middle (not sure what type they were, but they are killer sharp, so totally double as a defensive weapon?!) I added white painted willow branches and giant pine cones I’ve had for a few years, then started layering in the greens and berries.

I used stems of weather resistant faux red berries. These are solid plastic as opposed to plastic over Styrofoam like most faux berries…this construction keeps them from bursting like most faux berries do when they freeze and thaw #northeastproblems. And while I love real harvested red berries, the birds would pick them clean in a matter of days not to mention leaving lovely red splotches on my walk and steps. Birds seem to have a very short digestive tract!

I started with boughs of noble fir, followed by pine boughs, red huckleberry branches, magnolia leaves for the dual colors, and juniper branches with their clusters of blue berries tucked in last to fill any gaps.

Meanwhile, this is the weekend we’ll start decking the halls inside too. My kids have great debates over the proper placement of all the characters in the nativity scene. I might have been known to rearrange them when no one was looking. This console table fall arrangement will soon be replaced with our nativity set. Pumpkins will not be visiting the Christ child.

And I think I’ll bring the rest of the cedar, pine, and boxwood garland in to use on the stair rail this year instead of my faux garland…or mixed with it. Mixing real in with faux is an excellent way to get a great look that is still easy to work with.

Happy Holiday Decorating!