Christmas Decorations in January

As the Christmas season continues, we are still fully enjoying our decorations this year. Let me share our mostly handmade decorations from our home with you that are still up in the middle of January to inspire some Christmas decorating ideas for next year.

The Christmas Season

It isn’t widely known or practiced these days, but the Christmas season doesn’t start until Christmas day and goes all the way to February second, which is the feast of the Purification also known as Candlemas. The night of the Purification is actually when the Holy Family leaves the stable in Bethlehem in order to flee to Egypt.

The commercialized Christmas that we’re all so familiar with starts well before Thanksgiving and ends just a couple days after Christmas. This timeline skips right over the time of preparation and expectation, which is the season of Advent, and moves the celebration of Christmas to before it even happens.

With this early Christmas everywhere each time we leave our homes all December long, it can be quite difficult to keep Advent and Christmas in their proper order.

In our home, we are putting forth our best effort into keeping the entire Christmas season. We didn’t start it too early and we haven’t ended it yet either.

To encourage you to join us in continuing to keep the season of Christmas in January, here are some of our Christmas decorations.

Christmas Decorations in January

Tree

The tree is probably our favorite decoration and arguably one of the most important decorations to have.

Colby picked out a really nice tree this year. It’s nice and tall and full. We put both clear and colored lights on it along with several handmade ornaments.

I like drying orange slices and pairing them up with cinnamon sticks to use as ornaments. We hang all our ornaments using some twine.

I hope to continue making ornaments and I can’t wait for our kids to make their own to put on the tree.

Between the tree, the orange slices and the cinnamon sticks you can definitely count on our house smelling amazing all the time during the Christmas season.

One of our favorite things to do right now is to sit in the living room in the evenings with the tree providing the only light in the room. It’s so peaceful and is such a lovely way to unwind and talk about anything our hearts desire.

If you get a real tree, make sure to pick up some of the clippings to use for other decorations. We used them for our wreath and centerpieces.

Wreath

This Christmas is the first time I’ve ever made a wreath, and we loved how it turned out!

We got a wreath base and a spool of ribbon from Hobby Lobby. I sliced up some oranges and I dried them in the oven. I cut up some of the clippings that we picked up and then I spent some time playing with the arrangement. Once I liked how it looked, I hot glued everything to the wreath base.

Since we don’t have any wreath hangers right now, my husband had to get creative so he used some wire to hang it on the door.

Centerpieces

For the centerpieces, I made two of them, I used some more of the tree clippings and the orange slices as well as some cinnamon sticks. I also used some mini pinecones and red berries that we picked up from Hobby Lobby.

Using wood centerpieces as the base, I played around with my supplies for a little while trying to decide what arrangement looked the best. When I liked the arrangement, I simply hot glued everything on.

One of the centerpieces I actually put in the master bathroom. It definitely adds a merry touch to our early mornings.

The other centerpiece, I put on our dining table with the Infant of Prague.

It adds a simple but cheerful touch to all of our meals throughout the Christmas season.

Garland

We also made a garland together to put across the frame separating the kitchen and living room.

Using a garland from Hobby Lobby, we loosely wrapped the ribbon around it and Colby hung it up.

Then I hot glued dried orange slices on some twine. Once it was to the length that we wanted, Colby hung it a little lower than the garland in a scalloped pattern.

The garland is our favorite handmade decoration this year!

Nativity

My personal opinion is that the Nativity scene is the most important decoration to have and there should be one in every home. We were so blessed to have ours gifted to us by some family.

We set ours up on top the piano next to the Christmas tree. The lights from the tree help light up the Nativity scene quite nicely.

Jesus is of course laying in the manger with Mary and Joseph around Him looking on with so much love in their eyes.

The shepherds and their flock look on the Christ Child with much awe and admiration along with the angel who announced the birth to them.

Since Epiphany has already passed, the Nativity set is complete with the three wisemen around the crib and the star that guided them shining brightly over.

The straw that we collected all throughout Advent adds the final touch to the humble, but cozy Nativity scene.

Merry Christmas!

I hope you enjoyed touring our Christmas decorations in the middle of January!

I hope you’ve received some inspiration as well as some encouragement. It certainly can be difficult to continue celebrating Christmas longer and later than so many, but that really does help make our Christmas so special.

When we properly use the time of preparation that has been set for us before Christmas, these days where everyone else has already moved on, we get to truly celebrate and appreciate this most important feast of our Lord.

So for next Christmas, let’s encourage each other to spend Advent making decorations and all of January enjoying them.