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Decorating for Christmas on a Budget (and a giveaway!)

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Now that Thanksgiving is behind us, ’tis the season for Christmas decorating!

This year has been unique… to choose the most flattering adjective possible. Because of all the uniqueness, for me, the Christmas season is more welcome this year than any other year in recent memory. I’m beyond ready!

Bring on the hope of Jesus’s birth, the tree, the lights, the music, the cookies, the stockings, the fun, the beauty. I don’t always decorate the weekend after Thanksgiving, but this year, I am.

Thus, here are….

Five Ways to Decorate for Christmas on a Budget

ONE: Garlands! In the past, I’ve created my own garlands by stringing thread through popcorn, cranberries, or both. Alternately, you can use hot glue to stick one wrapped peppermint to the next to create a candy garland like this one. Garlands aren’t just for your tree… swag them across the tops of windows, entry way furniture/ceiling, or chandeliers.

Photo Credit: Carol Browne Flickr via Compfight cc

TWO: Fun wrapping paper! Use it to cover an interior door, a bulletin board, or to “wallpaper” the back walls of your glass-front cabinets or bookshelves. Speaking of bookshelves… wrap a few of your books to make one of the most well-loved spaces in your home — the place where the books live! — festive.

THREE: In addition to lighting your tree, consider adding inexpensive Christmas lights to your mantel, the piece of furniture housing your TV, your bed’s headboard, your kitchen counters, or the runner down the center of your table. Suddenly, you’ll have several sources of magical lighting!

FOUR: Cozy Christmas throw pillows! During this season, more than any other, I’m a fan of gathering the family on a big, comfy sofa accented with a few affordable Christmas pillows. It’s the perfect place to slow down, relax with your loved ones, light a fire, and enjoy a holiday movie and hot cocoa.

FIVE: Holiday scents! Christmas candles and room sprays can be pricey, but here’s a simmer recipe (utilizing several spices already in your pantry) which you can simmer again and again in order to fill your home with the smells of Christmas.

I hope you enjoy decking the halls! I’d love to hear your budget-friendly decorating tips.

Congratulations to Kati & Ann, who each won copies of The Christmas Heirloom!

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Becky Wade

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Becky makes her home in Dallas, Texas with her husband and three children. She absolutely loves writing funny, heartwarming, and inspirational contemporary Christian romance.
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Comments

  4. I’ve read books by Karen Whietmeyer and Becky Wade and like their books. Would sure enjoy reading this one.

  5. Use what you have, just put in a different place. I liked your ideas as I enjoy lights everywhere! Have a blessed Christmas.

    • Yes! That’s a great suggestion. It’s easy to get in a rut and put the same items in the same places year after year. It definitely freshens things up to rearrange!

  7. As a kid, my family was definitely on a tight budget. I remember watching the Christmas classics like Rudolf, the Grinch, and Charlie Brown while stringing popcorn garland for the tree. I haven’t strung popcorn in many years but I do enjoy a string of lights on the mantle and on top of my piano to highlight the nativity and Bethlehem scenes on display.
    Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and will enjoy this unique Christmas season.

  10. Great ideas! Love the simmer recipe. Most times the best decorating ideas are the simple ones which most times can be used with what is on hand. With so many having limited or reduced incomes, it really helps.

    Thank you for the chance to win a copy of “The Christmas Heirloom” novella collection. Great cover, fabulous authors and wonderful stories I can’t wait for the opportunity to read.

  11. Great ideas!The last two years before I retired, we had our students stud an orange with cloves, then suspend it with a ribbon, as a decoration to take home.

    I have the book and really enjoyed it!

  12. Thanks for the giveaway! I love all the authors of this book! These are great ideas – some of which I will use!

  14. I haven’t done a popcorn string in years. This may be the year to start it up again. Dollar Tree is one of my decorating happy places. They really have cute & beautiful pieces, but you need to plan ahead & get them when they first are displayed…usually in September/October. I LOVE the simmer recipe. Thanks for sharing!!! 🎄❄📚🥰

  15. Thank you for the great budget-friendly decorating tips! I purchase inexpensive holiday pillow covers on Amazon that fit the pillows that already adorn my couch. They make the house look festive, and the pillow covers are easier to store than pillows.

  16. I’ve spent a lot of time with you this year! HA! I read the final Porter book and then ALL of the Bradford books (one right after the other with no breaks–glorious!) and I have the print copy of the newest one fresh, crisp, and ready to go (once life slows down a bit so that I can savor without distraction)! Great Scot, I’ve enjoyed these books! 😉

  17. I have found pillows to be the easiest things to save money on. I have only one pair of pillows I use in the wicker armchairs on the porch. As the seasons change, all I do is swap out the pillow coverings. Even the fabric I bought to make the coverings, I found on various sales.

  18. We normally do not decorate this early, but this is not a normal year. Yesterday we assembled the Christmas tree. Sometime this weekend we’ll add the lights; slowly it will all get done.

  19. We use packing paper from online orders and decorate it with paint, crayons, markers and stickers and wrap gifts with it. It is full of creativity and joy!

  21. Loved your ideas. I think this year especially things need to be simple but uplifting. I have not read any of your books before, but I would like to! I saw a Facebook prompt and I thought,” who is this 🙂 ” . So hear I am.

  28. Would love to read this book and I love your decorating tips. I have been eyeing some Christmas pillows this year. They are just so homey!

  29. Love these decorating tips! The simmer recipe sounds great, filling your home with Christmas smells. I will al sddo be decorating my house with Christmas fruit cake muffins and paleo linzer cookies 🙂

  30. Thanks Becky! For such wonderful tips!! I love the popcorn garland! It reminds me of my childhood and how we tried to eat some without it being noticeable… which it was! My mom was so irritated…. Love Christmas Ornaments!
    And thanks for the giveaway! The book sounds awesome!

  31. We finished putting up our interior Christmas decorations yesterday afternoon! Thanks for the chance to win!

  34. I love the stories in this book and I’d love to have it in paperback! I use my Christmas books to decorate with. I have them in the basket on my coffee table and around some of my nativities.

  35. These are some great ideas. I like to simmer hot water on the stove with cinnamon sticks and a few slices of oranges or peppermints. From the time I was a little girl we would sit and string popcorn and cranberries. A friend of my dad would bring over a huge bucket of cranberries and mom would pop the corn and all five of us kids had a blast to see who could come up with the prettiest strings. I did it for our two children also. This looks like a wonderful book. Great authors. Thanks for the chance. I started reading Christmas books at the begging of November.

  37. This book is just gorgeous, Becky! Thanks so much for the giveaway! We’re planning on decking the halls tonight!

  41. I wrap my pictures in my living room and tie big bows on them. I’ve used most of your ideas. Great suggestions. Merry Christmas.

  47. A couple of things I have done in the past is fill a bowl with pine cones and tinsel as well as put colorful Christmas tree balls (purchased from the dollar store in a large clear vase or hurricane jar.

  49. Great budget friendly ideas especially considering the difficult times many continue to have as the year draws to a close. Thanks for opening up the competition internationally – those words were exciting to see 😁😁

  50. Baking cookies or Banana Bread always smells so good in my kitchen. When my kids were little, we would cut snowflakes from white typing paper and paste them on the windows.

  51. I got a paper quilling take-and-make craft kit from our library and learned how to make snowflake ornaments with paper from around the house. So pretty. My tree isn’t up yet, so they are dangling from my lampshade! 🙂

  52. Thanks for sharing! I’d love to know where they gnome came from! I collect them! And books so I’d love this book, too! ❤️

  53. I love Christmas! We’ve had times of plenty and times of leanness. Either way, we celebrate with family, Christmas music, church and as many decorations as I have the energy for!

  54. Thank you for hosting this! I’m especially excited for the Christmas season this year too—we all need the joy of the season in a year of craziness. One of the things I’ve appreciated about this year is people decorating early. I love having more time to drive around and look at the lights!

  56. I love to burn candles both sweet scents and cinnamon. I found a frasier fir scent candle last week that smells like Christmas and I can’t wait to light it!

  57. Great ideas! We decorated a bit early this year, last weekend. It’s so much nicer with all the extra lights and our tiny RV tree. They really help out during these short days. Merry Christmas!

  58. Thanks for the suggestions! I love the smells of Christmas, & remember putting whole cloves in oranges back when I was a child (over 50 years ago!)

  59. Love these! Using wrapping paper to decorate the back of cabinets or bookcases is one I hadn’t thought of before, but would be so pretty!

  60. Our Christmas themed blankets do double duty to help as a room decoration and then to cozy up with on cold holiday nights

  61. Raising 8 kids we were always on a tight budget. We made many garlands out of construction paper and popcorn. I like the idea of hot gluing the wrapped peppermint candies together. I will tell my granddaughter. She always has her glue gun handy. Thanks for the chance ce to win this book!

  62. Love these! For a Christmas wrapping paper on a budget idea… the comics from the newspaper! Guess a lot of people don’t get the paper anymore (I know we don’t) but it always made cute… and cheap!… wrapping for the kids’ gifts!

  66. Oh I am SO with ya on decorating this year! I’ve been getting my house cleaned up from Thanksgiving weekend, so I can get all my decor up! I need the JOY of the season. And lights! I need all the pretty lights! Oh, and I’ve been dying to read this book! I’ve actually bought it couple of times as gifts, but never read it for myself! ❤

  67. I have been reading a lot lately and now want some good ideas for Christmas reading. The book looks amazing!

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