Here are a few things from my bag of tricks which require very little planning and can really brighten up a house.

Scandinavian Advent Stars:

I love these stars, which you can see in almost every window in Scandinavia at Christmas time. There are several websites you can order the stars from in the US. Advent stars are 5-8 pointed stars, usually made of cardboard, with patterns of holes cut into them. Inside is a small light fixture.You plug in your advent star and voila – a beautiful Christmas light.

I follow the Scandinavian tradition and hang a star in my upstairs windows. They give beautiful light. You can make your own advent star as well, but if you are looking for something easy, just order one online.

Christmas Card Décor:

I take the collection of Christmas cards I receive each season and create a really nice wall hanging in my entrance hall. To do this, I cut small pieces of twine and attach them to the individual cards. I make these pieces of twine varied in length, so that the cards hang at all different levels. What I end up with is a wall of Christmas themed artwork, without much work. I usually pre-cut the twine all at once, and then tie up my cards when I receive them.

Cut Pine Branches:

The Christmas tree provides beautiful aroma and ambiance in our living room. If I am entertaining, I will often go out and collect some fresh pine branches for some of the other rooms. If they are freshly clipped, put them in a vase of water, and they will maintain their freshness for a bit longer.

Christmas Flowers:

It may be completely stereotypical, but since where I live it can be quite cold and dark, I love anything growing and alive for Christmas. My favorites are hyacinths and amaryllis. You can buy them as bulbs, and they give you a bit of green and beautiful flowers for several weeks. I usually keep one or two on the tables in the house.

Candles:

Any excuse for candles this time of year is a good excuse. I assemble a good collection of red, green, and white candles over the year and keep them to light during the holiday season.

These are just a few small touches to give your house a cozy Christmas feeling without getting overwhelmed with endless craft projects. If you don’t have the time to invest, just one or two of these decorations will make it feel a bit more like Christmas.

Everyone loves to decorate Christmas trees, and what better way to tap into the Christmas spirit than to let each person decorate his or her own? Then when they are done, use them as creative centerpieces for your tables.

Start by looking for small scale Christmas trees. The three or four foot ones work well. Some stores will have a variety of colors. Get enough for each person for small parties, or one for a group of individuals for larger parties. For kids, it is best if they each have one. This will minimize fighting.

Lights are next on the list. To save money on this part of the party, you can use left-over Christmas tree lights. You can also ask party-goers to bring their own left-over lights. The trees aren’t that big, so you don’t need more than a single strand for a tree. You can also get the battery powered lights if you don’t have enough plug-ins or extension cords.

Decorations are another way to save money. You don’t need to buy new ones. Instead, lay out a variety of materials that can be turned into Christmas ornaments. You need paper, ribbon, scissors, glue, and a whole bunch of art material. You can also use left-over decorations, or ask for people to bring their left-over decorations which can be spruced up. If you want to personalize the trees even more, take a picture of the individuals and turn into a ornament.

Finally, light the Christmas trees and admire the work. There is no wrong way to decorate a Christmas tree. The goal is to have fun. Take pictures of the tree with the people who made them to capture the moment. The Christmas tree decorating party is a great way to incorporate a little fun into your standard Christmas party.

In addition, snowmen make great decorations for the entire winter.  Instead of the house feeling empty when all of the Christmas decorations are put away, the snowmen can stay on display.  Keep your window ledges, banisters, mirrors and more filled with seasonal cheer for the entire winter.  Even though the tree and stockings will be down, your children will have their own artwork to share until the snow is gone!

You Will Need:

White construction paper

Cardboard

Scissors

Three different-sized circle templates

Glue

Hole puncher

Ribbon of any color

Optional Materials for Decorating:

Cotton Balls

Crayons

A circular picture of your child’s face

Branches for arms

Orange and black construction paper

Options for Saving the Snowman:

Laminate Paper

Plastic Storage bags

1. Draw your snowman on the cardboard. Use the circle templates if you are having trouble drawing the circles. Make sure to over lap them in a snowman shape. You can also use a cookie cutter for the right shape. If you want a hat, don’t forget to draw that in as well.

2. Cut out the cardboard snowman.

3. Trace this snowman twice on the white construction paper.

4. Cut out both of the paper snowmen.

5. Glue the white snowmen to the cardboard cut-out one side at a time.

6. Let the glue completely dry.

7. At this point, let your child decorate both sides of the snowman.

8. If you intend to add branch arms, glue those on first and allow them to completely dry before you continue decorating.

9. Add texture by gluing on the cotton balls by the snowmen. If you do both sides, let one side dry before covering the second side.

10. Glue your child’s face onto the snowman for a personal touch, or let your child decorate the face of the snowman as they please.

11. Make a hole in the hat or the top of the snowman.

12. String the ribbon through the hole and tie a knot.

13. Hang on the Christmas tree.

14. Save your ornaments by placing them in a plastic storage bag. If they aren’t covered in cotton balls, you can also laminate the snowman.

Snowman ornaments are fairly easy to make. Your child will get a kick out of looking at them on the Christmas tree.

• Check your mail order deliveries as soon as they get there. It’s hard not to panic if you wait till after dark on Christmas Eve to open that package that got in a few days ago — then find it doesn’t have everything you expected. (Whether it’s your fault for thinking you had ordered something you didn’t, or their fault for not sending it, your main reaction is still panic.) However . . .
• If you do need a last-minute present, think of ebooks. They’re available on every subject, delivery is instant, and even if the recipient doesn’t have a reader for them, they can be printed out and put in a binder. Book on demand!
• Digital gift cards are another good last-minute present, especially if you don’t need something that looks good in a bag under the tree.
• Check all your hiding places for presents you may have bought and forgotten about. Those of us who find ourselves short of presents may wish we had this problem — but it’s a problem all the same.
• Have presents drop shipped from the company straight to the recipient. Many will even gift wrap them for you and enclose a gift receipt. No standing in line at the post office.
• Give the gift of an activity. Tickets to plays, movies, and other events give a couple or family some special time together — and they can usually be bought online.

Sure, it was a good Christmas, but next one can be even better.

This recipe has been adapted from the 1918 International Jewish Cook Book by Florence Kreisler Greenbaum. Obviously stollen isn’t just for Christmas! The original recipe made a huge amount, but families, and possibly also appetites, tended to be bigger in 1918.

For a large loaf, set your bread machine to the dough cycle and put in:

• 1 cup milk
  1/2 cup (1 stick) softened butter
  1 large egg
  3 cups flour
  1/2 cup ground almonds
  1/3 cup sugar
  1/4 cup raisins
  1 1/2 teaspoon yeast
  1/2 teaspoon salt

When the dough is ready, it should be soft but not sticky. At this point you may want to flatten it out and roll it around a long piece of marzipan (almond paste). I used a half-pound rectangle, cut in two strips — I think next time, I’d also flatten it slightly with a rolling pin. The marzipan is optional; if you prefer your bread less sweet, just form the loaf without it.

The loaf will be about 14 inches long. Bake it on a greased baking sheet or silicon mat at 375 for about 45 minutes. Brush it with melted butter before baking for a golden color. You can also sprinkle the stollen with powdered sugar when it’s baked.

It’s good either warm or cold, with butter or as is.

I’m not sure if there are certain foods one should skip over the holidays, but here’s my advice:

- Eat everything in moderation and stick to small portions
- Save your calories for desserts and alcoholic beverages and don’t fill up on bread and rolls
- Fill up on the healthy stuff first like the proteins and vegetables
- Only eat a quarter of your dessert and eat it slowly so to savor every bite.

We especially like this advice.  The holidays are a special time and the food that happens there only happens once per year.  Do things in moderation and don’t overly deprive yourself, and you can keep your diet and your sanity.

The most creative gift wrapping is done using simple elements (using what you already have lying around); with recycled paper and paper shopping bags, tin foil and ribbons, and adding your own creative decorative design with your choice of crayons, magic markers, glue stick, photos (personal /magazine), doodles, notes and imagination! What fun, and you also be giving a lovely and handmade piece of art!

No matter what your personal artistic, creativity level, there are things you can do to give a personal touch to your presents. It is certain that the recipients will appreciate the time you took to make it personal.

But what are the do and don’ts of holiday lawn light displays?  This was the topic of a recent question over at Idea Offer. The best set of holiday light ideas came from Diana Smith:

Elegant is all white lights.
Too elegant is thousands of white lights.

Classy, you buy several strings of white lights, and then several strings of red and green lights, and blue lights.

You garland 2 clear light set with two each of red, blue, green. You may need to use either an extra pair of hands or lots of masking tape for this operation. Take care, you need to be very gentle or you may break a light somewhere. To keep things organized place red, blue, green stickers on the ends of the same colors.

Then you place first garland where your going to have them, usually across the roof, and up and down a driveway lamp post if you have one. A mailbox stand if you don’t, or some other lawn device, such as a tree if you have neither.

But carefully about lights don’t make them one big clump, stagger them evenly across your decorating surface. You may need to buy some sticky tab hooks for roof hangings.

Even better, have a light switcher so that white/green and white/red will display together but slowly fade and switch every 5 minutes.

Toyland, lots of candy canes, snowmen, Santa, prancing reindeer, giant nutcrackers, silhouette princesses dressed in pretty gowns. Hey nothing’s wrong with it. It’s expensive, great if you really love Christmas and setting up big displays, that clearly say to your neighbors “I am the toy man, see me rawr.”

Simple and Sweet, Paying $35 for a wreath with large California pine cones, a big red velvety bow and a 9V battery-powered candle, hung to your door it says Christmas to your neighbors and mailmen during the day, and won’t cost very much to keep lit at night.

Alternatively, you can buy a stone angel, place it in your yard and put a real candle in it’s hands on Christmas eve, it doubles as a commemorative lawn token year-round.

So before you set out to make your yard a winter wonderland display, take some of the advice and make it something special.

Of course, you’ll need to enter the size and weight of your package. And the weight is the hard part, of course, unless you own a postal scale. Well, I do — and I’ve used it to get typical weights for potential gift items, in both metric and English (I’ve rounded off the amounts):

• 2 CDs in box: 78 grams (3 oz)
• 400-page paperback book: 203 grams (7 oz)
• cloth-covered barrette: 26 grams (almost one ounce)
• gift card: 5 grams (.2 ounces)
• silk scarf, 40″x 40″: 50 grams (2 ounces)
• necktie: 36 grams (1.3 oz)
• video cassette: 200 grams (7 oz)
• kids’ picture book, 32 pages: 133 grams (5 oz)
• Promotional ballpoint pen: 14 grams (about 1/2 ounce)
• Picture in 5″x7″ frame with glass: 186 grams (6.5 oz)

Metric-conversions.org is a good place to get this done. An advantage all these items have is that they can be mailed in envelopes (preferably bubble wrap, for protection). In Canada, at least, the thinner you can make your package, the less you’ll have to pay.

Speaking of envelopes, don’t forget to count their weight. It’s not much, but it can make a difference. Here are the weights of some popular size envelopes:

• 6″x10″ (about the size of a video cassette): 16 grams (a little over 1/2 ounce)
• 8.5″x12″ (a little bigger than a sheet of paper): 23grams (almost one ounce)
• 10.5″x16″: 40 grams (1 1/2 oz).

Knowing the numbers can save you a lot of time this Christmas.

Brazil

Decorate your house with fresh flowers from the garden. Celebrate with folk dancing and singing. Have some of their traditional Christmas dinner items, including turkey and ham.

Denmark

In Denmark, families leave rice pudding or porridge for Santa so that he’ll be friendly and keep his jokes within limit.

Hungary

Hungarian families gather around the Christmas tree to sing carols before they head off to Midnight Mass. Adults and children also perform the Nativity play through puppetry, songs and music.

Philippines

In the Philippines, Filipino Catholic families attend a nine-mass Misa de Gallo starting December 16 every year. They also have a grand feast called Noche Buena on Christmas Eve with the entire family and mostly consists of ham, noodles and hot local chocolate.

Sweden

In Sweden, mothers light candles on Christmas Eve. Christmas trees are set up two days before Christmas and they’re decorated with candles, apples, straw ornaments, Swedish flags and small gnomes wearing red tasseled caps.

You can also create new traditions all your own. Gather your kids or your spouse and think of new ideas you can do religiously every year. It can be as simple trying a new Christmas recipe every year. You can attend and watch Christmas plays. Or you can have movie nights, featuring different Christmas movies (or not, it’s your choice). You can feature Secret Santa with a theme every week.

Whatever you decide, just remember to keep it still in the spirit of Christmas.