I put up most of our Christmas decorations on Thanksgiving weekend. We had a party last night which meant that yesterday was spent preparing the house for said party. While we were cleaning, I added more decorations and did some party prepping. A lot of these ideas are inexpensive and easy to do so I thought I'd share in case any of you still have halls to deck.

This table is were appetizers tend to go. Once it's time to sit down and eat, people also sit at this table. Since appetizers can be drippy, I cut a length of wrapping paper to place over the tablecloth. The idea was that I would take it off to reveal a clean tablecloth at the appropriate time but it worked out that the paper stayed put all night. The thing is that the paper looked better even with a bit of stuff dripped on it than the tablecloth alone would have. And it's cute! I folded the cut ends of the paper and taped them but I don't know that anyone noticed this touch.

We close up the garage for extra seating. We bought several inexpensive green plastic drop cloths and Steve stapled them to the top of the garage walls. They cover the garage stuff and make the room seem less like a garage. Steve stapled the lights to the ceiling in such a way that we can leave them up until next year. 

I have a big canvas drop cloth and another smaller one that together mostly covered the floor.

When the sun went down and the Christmas lights came on, and later when I lit the candles, this was a really nice room that seated about 25. We used two small electric space heaters which warmed the room in a very short time. Honestly, this was the quietest, nicest place to sit and eat and visit.

I used a variety of votives holders on the each table. I realized an hour before the party that they would look better on mirror tiles. I don't have any mirror tiles but I do have foil. I wanted to cut 3 at once so I did what any quilter would do… I tore off 3 sheets of foil, layered them, put a salad plate on top and cut around it with a small rotary cutter.

Did you know that when you did that with foil the edges are stuck together? I could not separate them. So one of these is 3 sheets thick and the rest are 2 sheets thick because 1 sheet of foil was a little too limp. They did the trick and were fast and cheep and pretty.

The orange guy is the CottonMonster I bought in Baltimore. He lives on the sofa now. To Christmas him up I pinned a red net bow to his head. I'm here to tell you, a red net bow will make almost anything holiday worthy.

Sparlky garlands in glass bowls are easy and flashy and pretty. I added Christmas balls to them in these bowls. I did this last year, I'll do it again next year. I had one extra lenth of red garland and I nailed it around the front door trim, inside the house. It was a very nice addition that I'll do again.

I've mostly got a red and white decorating scheme for Christmas. We decided to put appetizers on this small table too. This picnic cloth doesn't scream Christmas but it worked because of the color. I could have used wrapping paper too.

I hope you are having fun with your Christmas decorations! I'm finally done and am enjoying them. It is very possible that they will all come down on December 26 so we have 2 weeks of holiday cheer ahead at our house. To be completely honest, that's about all I can take. I like my house with less stuff everywhere – but for the next 2 weeks I can love it!