The children in our neighborhood are full of joy for their favorite day of all time has arrived just now: SNOW DAY. Yep. School was cancelled since a snow storm arrived yesterday and turned our sleepy town into a winter wonderland. The trees are frosted, the ground is a blanket of white, and the temperature outdoors is just right for sledding down the hill in our front yard. On this snow day, it’s also the first day I feel I can truly, joyfully, begin to add holiday touches around our home. Green and White Plus Twinkly Lights is sort of my go-to plan every Christmas to avoid overwhelm and overwrought holiday decorating.

Know what I mean?

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The Emotional Impact of Green

What is it about green–especially for holiday decorating–that evokes feelings of well being and warmth even though it is a cool color? Well, it obviously reflects the beauty and elegant simplicity of the natural world. But it is also a deeply tranquil color which is associated with health and even good fortune. For me personally, green takes on star status during the holidays because it represents new life. It calls to mind the birth of the Christ child and even an enduring, everlasting, flourishing in the dead of winter. As I type these words, I am gazing at naked trees, stripped of their leaves. The greening to come is on the horizon so any glimpses of it bring a sort of hope, whether we process it on a conscious level or not.

Find fairy lights and white light strings RIGHT HERE.

Holiday Decor: Green and White Plus Twinkly Lights

Green and white plus twinkly lights is pretty dang easy in the courtyard. Fresh boughs from our enormous soaring Norway Spruce with some twigs and fairy lights. On a greyed white bench. Boom.

This box in a London window I snapped a few weeks back perfectly celebrates green and white splendor without any red bows or extra adornment.

I did hang two plain green Frasier Fir wreaths for Thanksgiving.

Here are some battery operated star string lights which may work for you.

Fresh evergreens, wooly white pom poms, and candlelight are a cozy holiday trio you can take to the bank.

There is definitely a cost to using fresh and free of charge evergreens from the yard like I do. I will be vacuuming fallen spruce needles the whole year through it seems! Maybe I’ll spring for something that won’t shed like such a shedmuffin.

I am not green with envy, but am rather deeply inspired by how My Petite Maison uses white in her gorgeous bungalow. With green, added, ooh la la.

When I organized my studio’s closet last year, I tossed my supply of handmade tissue poufs (they took up so much space!) so I’ll have to make a bunch this year for my vintage French wire basket.

White ironstone is so simple and elegant with green sprigs.

Random: The color green is associated with fertility (anyone else recall adolescent jokes about green M&M’s?), and apparently it was THE color to wear on your wedding day in the 1400’s.

White kitchens make the perfect canvas for layering on green and fairy lights. And what a relief I don’t need a green thumb to enjoy live greenery at Christmastime…just a daily mist of H2O keeps the greens happy.

Suddenly I want to paint an old ladder white…where’s my paintbrush!?!

This vintage plate broke last year, and what a shame…the palest aqua green with aged and crazed white.

I have a stash of pinecones from the yard to give the ol’ flocked treatment to this year.

While I love blush pink roses, white ones charm me more and are always my first choice in any season.

Corner French Cottage knows her way around the dreaminess of white, and her dining room above and living room below are evidence you can skip the reds.

Not that there’s anything wrong with a sweet little pop of red from a fresh berry.

Do you wear much green? I love those military greens.

Even springier greens can feel festive and best friends with white.

Classic Christmas Mood Music

Beautiful Understated Holiday Decorating Finds

Here’s the candelabra in my own kitchen window:

Lovely Magnolia Leaf Wreath

Feathery & White

For the Fireplace Mantel?

Need a Fireplace Mantel?

For inspiring fireplace ideas, SEE THIS.

Unfussy Reindeer

A Touch of Green for the Kitchen or Bath

Holiday Sparkle for All Year Round

Another Classic for the Bath

Side Table With a Touch of Gold

Pretty Things for Any Side Table

Perfect for Christmas Cookies

Traditional and Nostalgic

Understated and Tonal

Understated Lovely Without Any Other Adornment

Ornaments That Don’t Shout

Never Out of Style

Neutral for Any Holiday Pillow

Mercury Glass Finds

Elegant Green + White Holiday Pretty

Can’t You Just Picture Greenery on It?

So Cozy, It Hurts

I think I need this to pull up to my farm sink!

Please visit my PINTEREST BOARDS to re-PIN pretty things to spread the magic – I am saving Christmas decorating ideas at the moment!

Personal Reflections: Seeking Light

It is quite easy to tune into the television, the computer, or even daily conversations and become weary or triggered by what feels dark or unholy during these holy days. Holy days call for a measure of faith, and mustard-seed sized will do. To protect our hearts and our faltering faith in humanity, we must gaze higher. It’s  how I long for my life to be used…in small, gentle ways to tenderly point to a flickering light which will never go out.

To glimpse it is to surrender to what we do not and cannot know with intellect alone. To be warmed by it is to gaze into what lies within the grey realm of mysterious unknowing.

For when we lift our eyes from the surface; when we seek the light of the Word or enter into the sacred spaciousness of contemplative silence which is always a breath away…it’s there we discover the beautiful holy. We discover what we seek has been waiting for us all along.

We must not grow cynical even when circumstances swirling around us convince us it’s the only sane or logical response. Because truly we’re seeing only the underside of the unfolding story, yes? The other side of this still unfinished, messed up tapestry of a story is a lovely woven masterpiece indeed.

“God’s love and kindness

will shine upon us

like the sun that rises

in the sky.

On us who live

in the dark shadow

of death

that light will shine

to guide us

into a life of peace.”

LUKE 1: 78-79 (CEV)

Wishing you eyes to see the guiding light,

and

Peace to you right where you are.

-michele

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