Eloise and me: Deck The Hall(s)

December 3, 2011

Deck The Hall(s)

First I have to say just how happy we are to say we have a hall in this apartment! Yes, a hall, ONE hall. While it sounds hilarious, they are not easy to come by here in New York City! When we first moved in, I remember showing the apartment to our whole family back home; via skype, as I said "here's the hallway" so excited.
They all laughed! My cousins thought it was the funniest thing ever.

So, onto decking the halls.

I had a bit of a meltdown when I started to think about decorating for Christmas and ALL of our beautiful Decorations in storage in Utah. Shed some tears, called John at work and told him how much I wanted to hang our beautiful hand-made stockings, my Christmas Goose with all her feathers a-flyin', the glittered silhouette nativity, and gosh DANG IT even our pickle ornament!!! He sweetly said " I know, I am sorry you don't have it here, but we'll make our own fun decorations this year."

Hmmm... sweet, but not so sure about that. Shed a few more tears, then moved onto some serious thinking business. What can I do to decorate without buying all new? No way I can replace it all, no way would I want to buy more decorations that I'll have to haul again in our next move... blahh.

I collected everything I had around the apartment. All my crafty items. A big 200 ft.spool of string (because we all have that laying around right) don't even know where it came from. Music books, glue, glitter, feathers, a couple birds nests I bought last year at pottery barn right after Christmas on sale for .95 cents! I had quite the stash of equipment. I found yards & yards of burlap.

I created these glittered ornaments on the music sheet-paper, filled the nests with feathers and birds, cut out hundreds of little paper stars, and twirled my string around until it looked like a delicate twisted garland.

I made John walk to Central Park in the rain to collect pine-cones. Did you know there's a whole section in Central Park named the 'Pinetum'. Tons and tons of pine trees. 17 different species of pine trees to be exact. I brought them home and glittered them of course. I walked around the corner to the tree stand and asked them for their "scraps" and came home with enough to create my fireplace garland!

See, it all worked out. Even though I miss all my colorful, sparkly, memory-filled Christmas decorations at home, I am grateful to have these special, home-made (with lots of love) decorations. All of which have created memories too. Bonus, I only spent $23.00 for the things I couldn't make myself, ie: lights! & sparkle ribbon!

Carrying the tree home. Manhattan Style. Walking a few blocks of course.