13 Favorite Ways to Get Ready for the Holidays

Here they are, all in one post: 13 of my favorite ways to get ready for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays!

Hope you find this helpful as you decorate, craft, cook and prepare for the holidays!

Click on the BLUE title below to access that post for more details.

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Turkey Napkin Fold

Turkey Napkin Fold for Thanksgiving Table Setting

 

Pottery Barn Inspired Garland Tutorial

I was obsessed with this picture when I first saw it in a Pottery Barn catalog. Since the cost of the garland was outside my holiday decorating budget, I found an easy, inexpensive way to make it for my own front porch.

Make-This-Pottery-Barn-Inspired-Garland

 

Here’s how the garland looked on my front porch.

Christmas Porch with Snowflake Wreath and Lit Garland

 

Cranberry Trifle for Christmas Dessert 

This trifle is soooo good and so easy to make. Your guests will never guess how easy this impressive looking dessert was to make! 

 

Cranberry Trifle, Great for a Christmas Dessert_wm

 

15 Minute Holiday Centerpiece

Such a fast and easy way to dress an entry table. Works great as a table centerpiece, too!

Easy Christmas Centerpiece You Can Make in 15 Minutes Using Greenery from Your Yard 2a

 

An Insanely Awesome Champagne Punch: Great for Parties or a Christmas or New Years Brunch

Makes several batches because this punch is a big hit and goes really fast!

Insanely Awesome Champagne Punch 2

 

Set Up A Hot Cocoa Bar To Enjoy All Winter Long

I had so much fun putting his Hot Cocoa Bar together!

Hot Cocoa Bar for the Porch

 

Make This DIY Sign for Your for Your Hot Cocoa Bar

This is a detailed tutorial sharing exactly how I made the sign to go above my Hot Cocoa Bar.

diy-this-hot-cocoa-bar-sign

 

How to Repair Those Dead Christmas Tree Lights

Sometimes the fix is an easy one, but you just have to know where to look! 🙂

Easy Repair for Dead Christmas Tree Lights

 

Decorate Your Door With Triple Wreaths: Grandinroad Knockoff

Took me a while to figure how to make this “triple wreath” thing work for my front door. It’s an over-the-top look that’s a lot of fun to create!

Front Porch Decorated for Christmas with Triple Wreaths on Door and Pottery Barn Knock-off Garland

 

Decorate Your Car for Christmas!

When I’m not outside vacuuming up acorns, this is the other way I make sure my neighbors know I’m just one brick shy of a full load. 😉

Decorate Your Car for Christmas Home Tour

 

21 Drinks Great for Holiday Parties

I would love to make every one of these recipes!

21 Holiday Party Drinks

 

Decorate a Lantern, Mailbox or Pergola for Christmas

This is seriously the easiest arrangement you could ever make for a gate, post, lantern, pergola or mailbox. If you don’t have a magnolia tree in your yard, use holly or another long-lasting evergreen. There’s a lot of faux greenery available out there that would work well for this, too.

Lantern Decorated for Christmas

 

Decorate a Porch for Christmas

Decorate your porch and enjoy it all through the holiday season, even if it’s only by viewing it from inside your home, snuggled up by a warm fire.

Between Naps on the Porch Christmas Porch

 

A Bonus! Who can stop at just 13! 😉

Snowman Spice Cake Dessert and Centerpiece

Bake this adorable Snowman Spice Cake for a festive holiday dessert! He’ll make a great centerpiece for your holiday table, as well!

Snowman Spice Cake Image

 

Follow Between Naps On The Porch on Instagram for more of my holiday posts: BNOTP on Instagram

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Comments

  1. I love your porch. You always decorate so pretty. Was wondering if that is a sound system wired to your porch? Looks like a speaker. I want to check into the wireless systems , would love to have music out on mine.

    • Thanks, Betsy! Yup, when I was having the porch built, I had them wire it for speakers. Those are outdoor speakers and they’ve worked really well. I thought I had a problem once with one of them, but it turned out to be a setting on the receiver inside the house. If you do buy speakers to use on a porch, just make sure they are certified for outdoor use since they’ll be subject to a lot of moisture and temperature fluctuations.

  2. I love seeing all of these great ideas again! I so enjoy this time of year and have so much fun decorating for each Holiday. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and ideas.

  3. Such great tips! Thanks so much. I also pinned several!

  4. Barbara Bell says

    Your enthusiasm for decorative holiday pillows sent me to TJMaxx.com where I bought two adorable pillows for my living room sofa. But I later saw so many inexpensive holiday pillows on Brylane.com that I thought you ought to check it out. Too many to single any out – I wanted them all!

  5. Marlene Stephenson says

    Love your decor, it’s always so beautiful and cute at the same time, it truly makes me smile. Thank you for that, we all need to smile.

  6. I’d forgotten about that natural centerpiece with the oranges; thanks for the reminder.

  7. Oh, my, I am getting so excited!!! I remember every post and loved them all. Thanks for the reminders.

  8. You’ve come a long way baby!!! 🙂 franki

  9. Want to write this to you susan……i love your blog. Has always made me smile. You feel like a friend. We are currently surrounded by fires to the north, east, west and south. We are hoping for the best. We have not had to evacuate yet although the fire to the north is out of control. 21000 acres have burned in past couple of days and wind forecast n to s at 25 to 30 mph in a couple of days. We have a 2 lane road one way in and one way out with 9000 residents mostly over 65. I dont know what will happen….the calif firefighters just arrived bless them. We have planned what we will grab if we must leave. But in case things get worse i just thought i should say the things i needed to in case i dont get another chance. Thank you for all the fun times i have had reading your blog…heres hoping there will be more

    • Nancy, maybe you should go ahead and leave now. I wouldn’t wait to the last minute since you will have a lot of folks trying to leave via that one road. I hope you will consider leaving early.
      Please let me know how things are going…worried about you! 🙁

  10. Evening Susan, with that beautiful magnolia in your yard have you ever made a magnolia garland? I would really love to make some for the outside entrances and am wondering how much magnolia it would take. I would hate to denude the much smaller tree I have in my yard ! lol

    • No, I haven’t tried that, but I do love to use the leaves in indoor arrangements and to beef up store-bought Christmas wreaths. Unfortunately, the backs of the leaves on my magnolia aren’t brown, so it wouldn’t make as pretty a garland as a lot of magnolias I see here in Georgia that have the brown backs, like the popular Bracken Brown Magnolia. The tree in my yard was already here when I moved here, so I inherited it. It’s grown tremendously over the last 25 years that I’ve lived here.
      Check out the gorgeous magnolia garland around the front door of one of the homes on this Christmas home tour. It’s was wonderful! I can’t imagine how long it took to make because it was super full. You can see the brown backs of the leaves, too. https://betweennapsontheporch.net/christmas-tour-of-homes-decorating-for-christmas-welcome-to-the-50th-metamorphosis-monday/

  11. So many amazing ideas! Love the turkey napkins and the cocoa bar – and deocrating the car! Fabulous!

  12. Cynthia Lambert says

    We need a little Christmas! Right this very minute! Yes, indeed, ’tis the Season. Thanks for sharing your cheer.

  13. Elizabeth Roderick says

    Everything is lovely as always but I want to say thank you especially for all the instructional things you teach us…for instance the Christmas light repair. You have many remarkable gifts!

  14. Susan, I don’t think you realize the extent you so willingly inspire as last year when replacing my Xmas Decorations I ensured all the wreaths, swags and garlands contained Magnolia as I’ve always envied your access and use of it. That said; I received many compliments on it so thank you from the bottom of my heart. -Brenda-

  15. Aww, thanks so much, Brenda! You made my day with those sweet words! That’s such a compliment coming from you because I know how amazingly talented you are! XX

  16. I have been following you for a few years now and have never left a comment!
    I don’t even know why but I love all of your posts.
    Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

    Kelly

  17. Jill Bearden says

    For the past year I have been wondering where your front porch lights came from. I love everything about them!

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