For many families, as soon as the Thanksgiving turkey and trimmings are eaten and the rest packed up, the Christmas lights go up and the decorating boxes come out; at least that is how it is at my house.
After opening the boxes of lights that had been rolled carefully and stored away for the season, my husband checks to see how many of the lights survived storage and are ready for another year of service. Much to my surprise he came into the house of chaos with a huge plastic carton filled with burned-out bulbs. I think there must have been four full strings of lights that were all working when he placed them in storage last year. I was shocked, and more so to learn that these were destined for the dumpster! Much to his dismay, I asked him to leave them on the counter for me. “I have an idea,” I said. I’m sure, his internal voice was groaning.
Home decorators have been filling pretty bowls with ornaments and vintage lights for decades, but I’d put a little different spin on the idea. I had a mid-sized footed glass container and decided that these full sized clear colored bulbs would be a funky decoration this year. I found some tiny LED lights at a big box store that were strung on thin stainless or copper wires and were powered by a battery pack. I previously had used these bright lights twined around some pine branches, and they add just the right amount of sparkle; I thought of them again to add some illumination to a container of burned out lights. The string of lights have a timer, so I don’t have to turn them on and off every day; they do it themselves, and the container looks so pretty and bright, almost like the bulbs are lit from within.
Each year, I see something that I think I can adapt or improve for a holiday decoration; if I really like what I’ve come up with, I often repeat it for another year or change it up just a little or move it to a new place in my home.
Because decorators are always intrigued with new ideas and putting their own special touch on things to make them unique, I encourage you to do the same. Something as simple as placing an old item that you use every year, in a new place in the home brings a different dimension to it and sometimes new life.