Tis the Season right?! Welllllllll, maybe not quite for most. 😉  But, for me, I am starting my Christmas decorating way earlier than I usually do, yes, I’d say November 8th is pretty early.  There are several reasons for this change in my normally very strict and scheduled regimen which in the past has included such things as pulling all of the Fall decor down and starting on the Christmas decorating the very next day after Thanksgiving.  Have I mentioned that I’m a very organized, anal retentive person who must stick to a schedule at all times?  I drive myself and I’m sure those around me crazy with my structured ways. So, I’m trying to lighten up a bit and break away from that ridiculous regime that I have always set up from myself; as I age, that type of thing just stresses me out more than it helps me.  I no longer am juggling kids and volunteering and crafting and any number of other things that I was involved in earlier in my life, now, it’s just the pups and me rattling around in this big house, so I’ve got the luxury of taking my time and spreading my decorating out over a couple of weeks as opposed to the mad dash to get Fall put away and Christmas set up the day after Thanksgiving.  Let’s not forget that I pretty much redecorate the main level of our home for both ‘Seasons’ and if I waited till Thanksgiving Day to deconstruct Fall and reconstruct Christmas, well, I’d be working up until Christmas…add in there Christmas shopping and wrapping <~~~~my biggest “pet peeve”, well, I’d be a blithering idiot! lol 😉

So yesterday I started to deconstruct Fall, BUT, since my hubby was home and he had graciously agreed to help me do a few things in the Christmas decorating realm that I might not be able to handle myself while he’s at work, I also started my Christmas decorating.  That’s right, I lightened up my schedule and then I straddled myself with a ton of work to get done in one day—Well, I’m a work in progress in and of myself obviously. lol 😉  The first thing that happened was that I went to the basement and delineated which “FALL” bins I needed to be carried upstairs <~~~hubby’s job, stairs are not my friend…bad knees.  While the hubby was doing the grunt work, I was starting to grab all things Fall, i.e. scarecrows, leaves, sunflowers…well you get the picture.  I sat myself down with gallon sized ziplock bags and a sharpie to be used to pack away (in an organized fashion of course) and label certain centerpiece accents and such.  This monumental task took quite a while…I will admit that I did not enjoy this part of my day…;)

In the midst of me doing all of this, after he had finished carrying all of my “Fall” bins upstairs, my hubby had retrieved the Christmas staircase pine garland from the basement, yes, that place that holds all things Holiday and much, much more. 😉  (He had already removed the pip berry garland from the railing; I hadn’t seen that railing nekkid in a long, long time. Didn’t like it much!)

We purchased these strands of pre-lit pine garland from the Pottery in Williamsburg, VA last year and I believe they are 9′ in length.  I *think* we used 3 lengths for the staircase…might have been 4, I honestly can’t rightly remember…blah to me huh?!

So the task of attaching the garland to the railing commenced…hubby’s job…and sometimes not all that easy of a task to complete considering that we are both crazy picky and the swag points have to be the same length…ugh…y’all get the picture.  That said though, my hubby has a great eye and he hardly had to tweak one swag point after he was finished. YaY!!

Next, I had found this “Ornament Garland” at Walmart a couple of weeks ago:

I used a strand of it to make this wreath…(Here is the link if you’d like to know how I put this wreath together):

And I had the bright idea that I wanted to add it to the staircase garland because I was not interested in making my own ornament garland which I know would probably send me over the edge. lol  SO, first thing we needed to do was to locate a bunch of boxes of these Ornament Garlands…took us trips to 2 different Walmarts.  I cleaned both Walmarts out and I purchased 8 boxes at $20 a pop, yes, a bit pricey, but, the end result was well worth the cost, not to mention the ease with which they attached; worth their weight in gold in my humble opinion.

This stuff is so nice! And the bulbs are shatter-free bulbs which is a great bonus for us considering that we have clumsy people (me) and long swishy tails (the dogs) running around this house. Each strand is 6′ long and the bulbs are attached to a plastic ‘feeling’, very pliable cording type stuff…I used 7-1/2 strands on the staircase garland…

To attach the ornament garland, we simply made a trough in the pine garland, snugged the ornament garland down into the trough and used the pine sprigs like twist ties and simply tied it in.  We did do a tiny bit of mixing of the ornaments into the pine garland, but honestly, it somehow came together beautifully! I was jumping for joy and doing the happy dance when I stood back and took a look at our work.  Wow!! 🙂

Next, I attached all of those big Christmas bows –Here is a link to tell you about those Big, Beautiful Christmas Bows.

The next thing I did was to create a pine ‘spray’ to go on the bullnose at the bottom of the stairs.  I took some pine ‘pics’ that I found at Hobby Lobby and tied them all together with a pipe cleaner, I stuck the tied end down into the bullnose and then I added a strand of 15 white lights, a few gold lacy flowered pics, a few gold berry bead pics, and I cut the 8th and last strand of ornament garland in half and used it to wrap in and around the spray. Then I attached the last big bow…

In years past, I’ve never been able to wrap my brain around or muster the strength to figure out how to make a pine ornament garland, but, I have to say that this pre-made ornament garland from Walmart made it so easy to bring this project to fruition.  It looks amazing and I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out! 🙂

Onward I go with my decorating…Stay tuned, I’m sure I’ll be posting blogs about my projects, cozy corners, table top decor, mantel and hearth decor…etc..etc…

Until next time, y’all take good care! ❤

**In crafting there are no mistakes just unique creations**

OH wait, I had cut the last strand of Ornament Garland in half, I only needed half of it to go on the bullnose spray.  I used the other half to create this little lantern decor–easy peezy little task.  I took a tray, sat the lantern down on the tray, wrapped the rest of the ornament garland around the lantern and added just a few snowflake ornaments. 🙂