Decorate Your Stairway For Christmas

It truly is the most wonderful time of the year! And decorating for the holidays can be a pleasure in itself. Your house can be alive with the holiday spirit without putting a huge dent in your time and budget.

It is helpful to simplify things. The tips offered here are fun and easy to do-you don't need to be a professional interior decorator to have a lovely holiday house!

If you have a staircase or railing in your home or on the porch, it is easy to make it festive. Start by choosing fir garland. You can use real or fake, and there are upsides to both choices: the real thing has that Christmas tree pine smell that delights our senses, while the fake garland can be reused year after year, and doesn't pose a fire hazard.

Once your garland is hung at even gently curved intervals from the stair railing, you can add your own personal touch. Use the following suggestions to get your creative holiday juices flowing.

You may choose to string cranberries or popcorn as in the olden days. Or you can paint the edges of pine cones white to suggest snow (or leave them natural). Now add these winsome lovelies to your greenery by fastening with bright ribbons in white, green, red, blue, gold, or silver.

If an outlet is handy, string indoor/outdoor Christmas lights to your garland. Make sure they are cool-burning, and do not leave unattended when lit.

If your staircase or railing is long enough, you may want to hang Christmas wreaths at even intervals.

If you have a landing at the bottom or middle of your staircase, group poinsettias or small potted pine trees in a corner or two. Decorate with ornaments, ribbons, and bows. Or you can fill decorative baskets or containers with fragranced potpourri for an interesting display.

Experiment to see what works for you. Once your staircase or railing is pleasing to your eye, you know you are finished!

Decorate For the Birds - Tips For Feeding Over-Wintering Birds

What if all the birds left town during the winter and we had birdless back yards? What if they didn't return in the spring? Wouldn't you miss their songs, their mating antics, their nest-building and food-foraging activities! Who would eat and distribute seeds? Who would scrounge around and consume all the insects? Where would they raise their babies?

As we sit inside our warm homes and feast on a big bird with all the trimmings, we might think about the little birds outside. Food is scarce for them during the winter months, and it is a time when they need extra protein.

There are fun and creative ways to supplement their diets. It's easy to make a popped corn and cranberry garland or small wreaths for the birds. Some suggested materials are:

• A tapestry needle and fish line or floral wire
• Bright ribbon or yarn
• Bag of raw unshelled peanuts or popped popcorn
• 3-4 apples, cut in chunks or bunch of large grapes, if available
• Bag of fresh cranberries
• Chunks of stale bread

Using the tapestry needle, thread items on the fish line, alternating them in a decorative manner. Tie off the ends with heavy knots and drape on tree. Or, you can use shorter lengths of wire, tie into a circle after threading on the goodies, and hang from tree with ribbon or yarn, like small wreaths.

Use stale bagels split in half and spread with peanut butter and/or lard. Press into birdseed, tie a ribbon through hole, and decorate a tree with bagel wreaths. And don't forget pinecones packed with the same mixture; birds love them!

Make an attractive birdfeeder wreath, starting with a grapevine or evergreen wreath as the base. In addition to some of the materials noted above, you'll need a glue gun, a 1/2" sliced orange and small peanut butter pinecones; "bouquets" of dried seedheads such as lavender, verbena, yarrow, or coneflower, weedheads or pods; clusters of snowberry, nandina, or bay laurel berries, or other garden ingredients you know birds love.

If you care about the aesthetics, plan how you want the wreath to look: a trio of apple chunks here, little flower and weed bouquets placed at two, four, eight, and ten o'clock; slices of oranges there; clusters of berries in between; peanut butter and seed pinecones at six or twelve o'clock, bright ribbons here and there. Some items you tie on, some you sew on, some you glue on.

For practical decor, loosely tie on clutches of 8" lengths of yarn for those birds that begin their nest-building early. To enjoy the bird activities, place the wreath in a visible and somewhat protected area and where you don't mind seed dropping to the ground. The birds may take a day or so to use it, but they quickly become emboldened enough to get on with their winter dining.

For the fruit-loving birds, orange, grapefruit, melon, and coconut halves can be hung like little bowls on a tree. Poke or drill holes in three or four places around the edge; tie on equal lengths of twine, and hang outside. Empty halves can be packed with suet and seed.

Lastly, you can make your own economical gelatin seed cakes. Combine a packet of unflavored gelatin with 1/4 cup of water; stir over low heat until completely dissolved. Add a cup and a quarter of your birds' favorite seed combo, and mix well. Pack into small, lightly spray-oiled molds and chill until solid. Unmold several at a time and put outside on a feeder.

Birds will show their appreciation by coming back again and again, even after the last seed is gone. Better have second and third helpings ready to serve when the first round runs out. And don't forget to have clean water available for drinking and bathing; they'll appreciate that too.

© 2010 Sandy P. Baker