Evaluating Your Holiday Atmosphere

The gifts have been opened, the goodies have been eaten, and the kids are playing with their new toys.  So goes the day after Christmas.  The lights will soon be taken down, the stockings put away, and the tree made into mulch.  Now is the time to start thinking about the atmosphere you want to create in and around your home during the next Christmas season.  In these quiet moments, take a look around your home with your guidebook in hand and begin writing down your thoughts and feelings about your decorations. 

Do you have a particular theme in certain rooms or places?  If so, do you need to add items to it?  Do you need to take some items out?  Make a list of items you would like to purchase so when you are out after Christmas when things are marked down, allowing you to decorate on a budget.   

No themes?  Do you want to start themes in certain areas?  For example, my kitchen is done in gingerbread men.  I have everything from my Longaberger gingerbread boy and girl cookie molds, a night light of a gingerbread house to gingerbread men stocking holders that I use as towel hangers in my windowsill.  Some rooms even have two themes – in my den, my mantle and hearth are all santa themed and the tree in that room is all Angels.  My nativity pieces and advent wreath is in the family room with our "family" tree.  Snowmen are the theme in the bathroom!  Be creative if you want to start a theme – look around your house and decide where you could theme and what it might be.  One area I do not have anything Christmas is the top of my piano – I have made a note next year to add a set of carolers and other music related items to the area for a festive touch – maybe even a tree with music inspired ornaments. Let your imagination be your guide – thinking about what you already have and things you might like to get.  Write your ideas down so you know what you want to do when you decorate next year and place them in your guidebook.

Creating an atmosphere that reflects you and your family during the holiday seson is important and can help you get in the spirit of the season.  Take time now to help make next year's Christmas atmosphrere a blessing to you and your family and all those who visit your home.