A little Christmas spirit

Christmas has always been a touchy subject for me. In my younger days, I wasn't overly religious. We grew up Catholic, and I just didn't seek Him out like I should have. We went to mass regularly, like we should, but that was about it. Around age 10, one of my aunts passed away a week before Christmas. She was the Aunt who had ALL the Christmas spirit! Her house was decked out from top to bottom in Christmas décor. Needless to say, Christmas was always pretty somber after that.

Fast forward to the last 3 years, and my faith has renewed like it's never been renewed before! I cherish my daily walk with Christ, and am so super excited to celebrate His birthday! 

 I try not to let the selfishness of the world damper my spirits with the me me me I want EVERYTHING for Christmas. Let's face it folks, it's not YOUR birthday! We must remember the reason for the season! Whew, rant over. Now let's chat about decorations!

I decided that I would decorate now. This year, my goal was to decorate, plan, purchase, wrap gifts, and have everything I needed to do, be done by December 1st. BIG DREAMING, I know!  I'm happy to report that 92% of it is done! I want to just fully submerse myself in the word and strengthening my faith over December, so I'm more determined than ever to fulfill my goal!

Let me share with you my decorations and how to make your own Christmas candles! I'll state here that we don't have a huge home, and even less space to store things, so I wanted my decorations to pack the punch without taking up a lot of space. I have one plastic tote in the closet that, in theory, should hold all decorations for the house. Again, I dream big! Ha! OK, so I dug around and found these gold pillar candles that managed to get all scratched up in the move. I needed a way to use them again because I hate throwing anything out!

 

I had purchased this glitter paper for bunting, but thought it was perfect to jazz up the candles! I measured the candle, and cut out the sizes I needed to wrap around the candle.

 

Next, I glued the ends as well as the candle itself, applying one strip of paper at a time. I used the Tacky Glue, but I'm sure you could use any sort of glue. Well, maybe not Elmer's, but a stronger type glue.

After each strip was applied, I used a hair tie to secure the paper around until the glue dried about 2 hours later.

And you're done! You can use this process on any holiday, it doesn't have to be Christmas colors. I'm kind of excited to see if I can remove the paper without damaging the candle too much so I can reuse it for other holidays!

 

 

How are you guys decorating this season- store bought or home made décor? Comment below!