Coloring Your Holidays

We all admire beautifully decorated trees. You know the ones. The perfect amount of lights, ornaments of different sizes and shapes, flawlessly balanced around the tree, with color combinations that match the gifts under the tree.

You admire them, but trimming your own tree to try and duplicate the effect at $5-$15 on average per ornament can exhaust anyone's holiday budget.

It doesn't have to. You do not have to buy a whole tree full of new ornaments to achieve this effect.

I inherited most of my ornaments from my mother. I remember the toy soldiers and reindeer hanging from trees full of multicolored lights. I loved them, but I had always admired the way my cousin trimmed her tree, perfectly coordinated with the presents gathered around the base.

One year, after the holidays had passed, I was putting away the ornaments, and I decided to divide up my ornaments according to color. I boxed up my silver ornaments separately. I placed all of my gold ornaments in another box. Separated out the red ornaments, and filled up a huge box full of blue ornaments. The following year, I decided to decorate with a blue and silver theme, blue being my favorite color. It was easy. After stringing up the white lights on the tree, I pulled out the box labeled blue and the box labeled silver and went to town. That year I purchased silver wrapping paper and blue ribbon, and I had my first coordinated Christmas.

I usually buy one new ornament each year, but otherwise I use what I have to create a beautiful and elegant tree. For the gifts, I choose a paper that is one solid color and matches my theme, using big bows formed out of wire ribbon to decorate the packages.

You probably already have your tree up and done, but if you would like to coordinate with a color scheme next year, save a few gift boxes and use them to separate out your ornaments.

Here is the new ornament I bought this year which is very fitting since this is my first Christmas as a published author.

My color scheme this year is red and silver. I have silver paper and red ribbon, now I just need the presents. Happy Holidays.

Jennifer Senhaji
Your Sweet & Spicy Romance Author

Find me online at www.jennifersenhajiauthor.com