Creating a vintage Christmas

Christmas is a time for families to gather and enjoy time together. Most people get quite nostalgic when they consider their childhood Christmas experiences. Creating a vintage Christmas experience can be about recreating the holidays that you remember from your childhood or it can be just about being a little reminiscent of days gone by.

Today, many people opt to have an artificial Christmas tree. A more vintage experience would be to go out as a family to a Christmas tree farm and get a live tree. If you prefer, you can bring it home in a tub so that it can be planted in the ground after Christmas instead of cutting it down.

Vintage Christmas tree ornaments are very much in style. There are many different ways to create a vintage look. A trip to the local antique store will help you to find authentic glass ornaments. This would be quite expensive for a large tree so you might want to consider a table top tree with your vintage ornaments. If you are happy with the look and don’t need to have authentic vintage ornaments, it is quite easy to find glass vintage look ornament even at the big box retailers.

Making homemade ornaments is a great way to give your Christmas tree a vintage look of a different sort. They also sell candle lights that are much safer but just as pretty as candles would be on the branches of your tree. Before electric lights were used on Christmas trees, candles were used to make the trees sparkle. Don’t forget to add some silver tinsel especially if your idea of vintage is the 1950s.

When it comes to filling the “stockings with care” there are many ways to add a vintage touch. Go with some of the classic toys like a Yo-Yo or Silly Putty and add penny candies and fruits. Of course, penny candies no longer sell for a penny but they are readily available and certainly add a nostalgic touch to the season.

Making your home smell like a vintage holiday can be as simple as making a pomander. Creating one is something that the children can help with and it can be something that you do together every year. All you need are oranges, lemons or tangerines, and some whole cloves. If you have ribbon you can hang the pomanders or you can place them in a bowl. Take the whole cloves and insert them in lines all over the fruit. It is simple but very effective.

In the 1950′s almost every family had the same set of aluminum cookie cutters. They are available in antique stores across the country or replica versions are also available. Not only do they help make great sugar cookies but if you take them and hang them from your Christmas tree with a red ribbon, they serve double use.

Fresh greens have been used to decorate at Yuletide for hundreds of years. These days not everyone has a place where they can cut their own evergreens or holly but you can buy them from the local nursery or Christmas tree lot. They add a great smell as well as look to many areas of the home including the front door, the banister, and the mantle.

There are many ways to create a vintage Christmas experience. Use your own personal experiences or borrowing from someone else. Vintage decor and feel can turn your house into a home.