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How to Decorate With Christmas Poinsettas

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When it comes to home holiday decorations, the poinsettia is a familiar mainstay on mantelpieces and dinner tables. However the tradition of using this plant as part of home holiday decorations originated in Mexico, not in North America.

In Mexico, the poinsettia is are called by many names: “flor de fuego” (fire flower), “flor de Navidad” (Christmas Flower), and “flor de la Nochebuena” (Flower of the Holy Night). North American culture has since adopted this flower, which comes with red, white or pink leaves, as part of traditional home holiday decorations. In Europe the tradition of using poinsettias as part of Christmas décor is a Spanish influence; a hangover from when Spanish conquistadors brought the gorgeous plant over from Mexico for royalty to admire. Exactly how it became associated with Christmas is not exactly known but the flower is a familiar site in every way around Christmas time. In fact, a gift of a Poinsetta is a sought after gift.

Most people just use the plant itself as a decorating accent and place it on the mantel, a dining room table or on a plant stand of its own that gives it some majesty and prominence in the room. No matter where you put them nothing says Christmas quite as vividly as a poinsettia. You can also take poinsettia flowers and make them into a beautiful wreath for your front door. However it is better to make this out of silk or plastic poinsettia foliage as one made from real leaves might be expensive.

The poinsettia makes a great decorating accent, particularly if you are planning a color scheme that is all white or all red as part of your xmas décor. However if you have pets or children in the house you may want to avoid using poinsettias as part of your home holiday decorations because it is a very poisonous plant. In this case you can easily buy life-like plastic versions of this special Christmas flower at craft and retail chain stores. Another benefit to using the plastic or silk versions of poinsettias is that you can keep them dust free and clean. Poinsettias can also be fussy flowers. You need to take care of it if you want it to live long.

If you don’t like the idea of keeping the actual plant around there are is no shortage of linens, ribbons and other décor that have a screen-print of a poinsettia on them. You can also get ceramic and glass decorations in the shape of a poinsettia.

How to Decorate With Christmas Centerpieces

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You can buy holiday table decorations but it is very cheap and simple to make your own centerpieces using Christmas decoration and a candle. You can also use all kinds of Christmas decoration to make things like napkin holders and special cocktail markers for holiday drinks.

The dinner table centerpiece is the easiest of holiday table decorations. You can reuse an old door wreathe and simply put a bright red, white or green scented candle in the middle of it. You can also buy an armature (such as a circular grapevine) at a store that sells Christmas decoration crafts and wrap it in real or fake evergreen boughs or ivy. You can then wrap the boughs with ribbon or decorate it with glass balls.

Glass balls that you no longer want to use on the tree as Christmas decoration can be hung from a dining table chandelier. You can hang glass balls from the rims of cocktail glasses that are wrapped with holiday ribbons. Don’t forget that you can also use strings of light as part of your holiday table decorations. One idea is to frame the table with strands of mini lights or a rope light. Use your imagination and you will find many novel ways to make your holiday table look like it was laid out by a professional interior designer!

Believe it or not you can also make small centerpieces out of palm trees. Palm trees are holy because they decorated the desert in which Jesus was born. Perhaps the simplest of decorations for smaller palm tree s are strands of white or multi colored lights entwined around the trunk of the palm. Bright white, red, gold or green lights are the colors that say merry xmas although pink, yellow and lime green also looks excellent on tropical plants. As ornaments have hooks that can harm a palm tree you are best to affix glass balls or crystals to wired bowed and tie the decorations onto the delicate fronds of the palm tree.

If you are looking forward to a tropical merry xmas you can also find specialty strings of lights called palm tree decorations. These are the kinds of lights you find in a Tiki cocktail bar complete with glowing plastic pink flamingos, palm trees and other tropical themes. These look good on a palm tree but you can also use them on a regular xmas tree (such as an artificial white one) to give your holiday décor an unusual flair. It’s not very traditional but it is interesting.