by Cat Hackman

Every year in November, I marvel at the Christmas trees and fireplace mantels in the decorating magazines. They always seem to pick a theme, such as all silver or gold with one colour or all green and red, or just neutral white snowflakes. Yes, it looks divine, but sometimes it can look a bit too “made up”.

Christmas decor needs to be authentic, natural and from the heart and it needs to make you feel warm and cozy, inside and out. Decorating is also about traditions, however, but if you stick to your traditions too firmly, you may not be able to let your imagination flow to create the decor you really want.

Weather fake or real, the Christmas tree is a favorite holiday decoration project. The tree has so many possibilities, from themed decor such choosing just two or three colors for the ornaments or choosing all types of angels, snowflakes, children’s crafts or pure simplicity with only one type of ornament for the entire tree.

My favorite color theme is the green-red-brown theme with natural elements. For example, making your own gingerbread ornaments, gingerbread persons, stars, hearts, snowflakes, pine cones etc. If you choose the gingerbread ornaments (my kids love this tradition), before baking, make a small hole in the cookie and after your gingerbread has been decorated and baked, you can use a red silk ribbon to hang it in your tree.

To continue on the natural theme, hang dried apple slices, fresh cranberries and popcorn on a string as garlands, large pine cones or bundles of cinnamon sticks tied with a ribbon. A tradition I always carry forward is sticking an orange full of cloves, in a pattern, then tying a red ribbon around the orange and hanging it from my dining room chandelier. It smells wonderful. Christmas is also about lots of candles, a soft white light to bring light in the darkness. And that is why I never use coloured lights, they don’t look anything like candlelight. Both inside and outside – white lights.

Last year I spent some time in Scandinavia in the dark month of January. I asked my friend who lives there why everyone had a candle burning outside their front door, every night? She said, for no special reason, just to lighten up the darkness of winter. I loved this “new” tradition. It was a silent greeting of light, to anyone who passed by.

No matter how you decide to decorate, do it with purpose and intention. Take photos of what you create, your room, and look at the pictures as if you never saw this living space before. What do you notice, what do you love and what bugs you? If something has a negative memory or is broken, bad energy will surround it. Good riddance. Remember to only use decor that you love and make you feel good.

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This article was provided by Room4refinement.com. Cat Hackman is a Calgary based interior decorator and owner of “www.Room4refinement.com”:http://www.room4refinement.com. Call 403.705.4791 c. 403.681.4473.