Christmas is my favourite time of the year, for me Christmas means Christ birthday, decorations, family and parties. During the period that Mexicans called Guadalupe-Reyes (from 12th December to 6th January) everything happens there are posadas, my mother’s birthday, Christmas eve dinner, Christmas lunch, boxing day shopping, my best friend birthday, my birthday, and finally the arrival of the wise men. Therefore, a lot of preparations need to happen and many people need to be invited, and I loved it.
The first thing to decide this year was whether you to have a natural or artificial tree. I love natural trees, however, with the move to the new house we bought a new rug and the shedding of the Christmas tree will ruin our new carpet. Therefore, to avoid this we decided to change to artificial tree and now the next step was to buy the perfect one. We bought the perfect one and now we were ready for decorating the house.
I always start decorating my house for Christmas during the first weekend of December, this is because the decoration takes a lot of my time to place them and I love the house decorated like this so I like to keep them as long as possible. I keep the decorations from the first weekend of December to the first weekend of January, after the wise men arrive on 6th January.
Once we had the tree, the next step was to get all the Christmas boxes from storage. I have been collecting items for Christmas decorations since I started living on my own. I started by buying small decorations like a tree and a nativity, and now after 17 years of collecting I am able to display them in my own house.
The first thing I start with is the Christmas tree. Firstly, I install the tree, then arrange the lights, then place the skirt and finally the tree decorations which include the unbreakable baubles. In Mexico, the decorations of the tree are something fashionable and every year they changed. However, I decided that I wanted my decorations to meant something.
Therefore, I designed them as followed: my first set of decorations I painted them myself, the next set I picked them from places that I visited, and the last set I bought them depicting a member of my family so that they are always with me during this season. This is because I do not spend every year with them but in this way, they are always part of the celebrations. The last thing I always put is the star at the top of the tree. The lights were hooked to a timer so that they switch on and off automatically.
Then I continued with the doors’ decorations. The first I built is the greeting card display and place it on top of the living area door as I like everyone to see. Then I place the entrance wreath as expected outside, however, after realising that the hall was plain, I moved the wreath inside. The next decoration was the advent calendar which only needed to be sticked to the door.
The final decorations were for the door knobs, however, I only had two so I had to improvise and used the stuff decorations of the tree to hang on the door knobs. This was good for this Christmas but I need to design the specific ones for next Christmas. The lights were hooked to a timer so that they switch on and off automatically, also.
Then I continued with the window decorations. As the living area has no blinds yet there was a lot of space for things to be put. The first thing that I needed to hang were the Christmas stocking, which I placed in the biggest window next to the tree. For the balcony door, which faces the front façade, I decided to hang some dropping light to illuminate the area. The lights were hooked to a timer so that they switch on and off automatically, as well.
Then I continued with the office decorations, I wanted to keep the decorations simple. With this in mind I only place some Christmas related stuff animals over the sofa, and over the bookcase a small decorative Christmas tree with integrated light, the first nativity I bought I Rome, a crochet table mat made by my late grandmother, and the final piece is a new German nutcracker.
The remaining of my Christmas related stuff animals, I placed them around the house, some on the other bedrooms and the rest on the spaces around the house like bookcase, DVD storage and shoe rack.
The remaining decorations were place on the open-door dish cabinet. I usually just use the bottom level of the display cabinet, however, due to the amount of fragile decorations that I have I decided to remove all the daily decorations and replaced them with the season’s decorations and the results were amazing. These decorations include a traditional Mexican nativity, an advent calendar ginger house, and some tea-candle holder decorated depicting Santa Claus, some penguins and lanterns.
The only thing left to decorate was the main table. The table mat was a nice poinsettia hand sewn from Budapest accompanied by two tea-candle lanterns and a real potted poinsettia. I love poinsettias as it is originally from Mexico where they are called Nochebuenas (Christmas eve flower).
The last set of decorations are for the dinner table. The table has everything with Christmas decorations like table cloth, napkins, napkin rings, condiments (salt and pepper) and some nice tea-candle holders. The best part of the decorations are the individual Christmas crackers. These dinner table decorations I only used them during Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas lunch.
Once the house is fully decorated we can start planning our next events. The next event we need to have are the Christmas Eve dinner and then Christmas lunch. In our house, I cooked the Christmas Eve dinner and then Christmas lunch is cooked by my husband.
Christmas Eve dinner, I usually cooked a multi-cultural dinner. The started is British, like smoked salmon or pumpkin soup, the main course is Mexican, usually red meat in a chilli sauce with the side dish of French potatoes, and finally a Mexican dessert, most of time pecan pie as it is my husband’s favourite.
Christmas lunch is usually cooked by my husband, which is a nice recipe that he wants to try. I personally thing that his best lunch is the roasted turkey Gordon Ramsey style with Brussels sprouts and bacon.
After Christmas lunch, the next event is the boxing day shopping. This is the best time to buy decorations for the next Christmas, as everything is half price. However, before shopping, I like to start designing what decorations I need and some ideas as to where they will go. It is also important, although tempting, to consider buying just what you need as the space very limited.
This year after seeing that now my house is too big for the decorations. I decided that what I needed decorations for the door knobs and for the doors. Once I decided what I needed then I went searching for these pieces on any place that have discounted decorations.
Fortunately, my visit to Tiger was productive and I was able to find some lovely elves. Although the elves are lovely and have some weight for the door knobs, they are incomplete as they need some kind of loop to hold to the door. Most of the decorations that I buy usually have the correct shape or the figure that I like but they are finished with low standards or they are boring. Therefore, most of the decorations need to be refitted for my own ideas.
With these additional decorations, some of the current decorations have to change place to fit with the new decorations making every Christmas different as the decorations change places every year, allowing to have different photographs.
In case of the doors, I decided that I did not want any wreaths as they are most of the door decorations. However, I decided that wreaths are rigid and I wanted something more excited and I picked felt as my main material. I love the versatility of felt and the endless possibilities.
Therefore, I decided to design each of the door decorations with different Christmas scenes based on a wreath patterns, as I love circular patterns. However, the only limitation is that they need to fit the current Christmas boxes as my storage space is over.
Finally, the last event of the season is to put everything back into the plastic boxes for storage for the next year. This year, I also decided to recycle any of the duplicate items that I had, as I needed more space for the new items that I am designing for next year’s Christmas.
The Christmas decorations is something that help you enhance the celebrations; however, it is important to mention that the most important aspect of Christmas is celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ and spending time with the family, as a way of building memories with an amazing birthday party.
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