December is the same way, with houses and yards filled with inflatable Santa's, Animated Snow Globes, and life sized reindeer and sleighs, Windows and stands are covered with garland and other decorations, door have wreaths hanging on them, and most homes have a large decorated Christmas tree, that is lighted and placed in a window for those outside to see as they pass by.
Most of these decorations have been bought in stores, and people spend a huge amount of money on them, when they don't have too at all, in fact there are some homes that are decorated and look just as nice or better, that have been decorated with decorations that are homemade. Just about any store bought decoration, except the large inflatable lawn decorations, can be made at home, or at least you can may your own variations of them, and save yourself a lot of money.
Here are just a few ideas for you to make your own Holiday decorations; Instead of buying the thick paper cutout images of skeletons, bats, pumpkins, jack-o-lanterns, turkeys, pilgrims, santas, and others, just search the internet for clipart or holiday decorations, and you can find hundreds or thousands of these images. Just select the images you like, and print them out using plain copy paper, then you can cut them out with scissors and hang them all around your house, including the windows.
The garland comes in different colors and thicknesses, and it seems every year there are more types of it to choose from, and like everything else, each year the price increases. Did you know that most homes have three things that can be turned into some beautiful homemade garland, to decorate the Christmas tree with? The three things you need to make your own garland is; thread of any color, a small needle and a bag of microwave popcorn. Here's how we used to make homemade garland every year, when I was a youngster. Simply pop the popcorn, but don't add any butter or seasonings to it, in fact, it works best when you use plain popcorn, that is butter free, but any popcorn will work.
Simply, thread the needle like you do if you were sewing, and carefully pass the needle through the popped corn, then add more and more, until after awhile you end up with a very long string of popcorn, that you can hang onto your Christmas tree. What is great about this is when the season is over, carefully remove the stringed popcorn from your tree, and take it outside and hang it over a fence or a tree branch, for the birds to enjoy.
Christmas ornaments can be made too, they actually sell clear glass ornaments that you can decorate, or you can buy plain, Styrofoam balls of different sizes, and make your own ornaments, you can paint, glue and sprinkle these with glitter, add ribbons, sequins and other items, fasten ornament hooks on them, and hang them onto your Christmas tree, or where ever you wish.
There is no limit to the types of Holiday items you can make at home, throughout the whole Holiday Season, from October through January, in fact you can make them all winter, even to use the next year. Making homemade ornaments and decorations is such great fun, one person can do it, or a whole family can make them together, anyway, it's a great way to help fight the winter blues.
There is a website that describes numerous activities and other methods to help eliminate the Winter Blues, this website is called: Winter Activities - and it may be found at this url: http://www.winter-activities.com
You may publish this article in your ezine, newsletter or on your web site as long as it is reprinted in its entirety and without modification except for formatting needs or grammar corrections.