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" By Charlotte Latvala. 1. Make putting up your tree an event: Order in, and play holiday CDs. 2. Gather holiday cards in a pretty basket on the dining room table. 3. For Kwanzaa, set up a table with a green tablecloth and a candle-holder with red, green, and black candles. 4. Place a bowl of Altoids breath mints next to the mistletoe. 5. Non-functioning fireplace? Set votive candles on upside-down flowerpots for a soft glow. 6. Even misshapen trees (like in A Charlie Brown Christmas) deserve to be dressed up. Buy one; load it with tinsel. 7. Drape your doorframes with long strings of popcorn and cranberries. 8. Start an ornament collection. 9. Just for fun, cover a small artificial tree with Lifesavers and Ring Pops. 10. Add sparkle: Phillips Halogena Brilliant Crystal light bulbs. 11. For a Hanukkah centerpiece, fill a vase with branches of lemon leaves, olive branches, and blue flowers. 12. In a corner, place poinsettias on foil-wrapped boxes of different sizes. 13. Light your sidewalk with luminarias\u2014candles placed in paper bags partially filled with sand. How You Deck YOUR Halls... By Marissa Gold. We asked our readers on Facebook about their favorite decorations to celebrate the season. Here&amp;#039;s what they told us: &amp;quot;I think this year I&amp;#039;m putting out my manger and that&amp;#039;s it. No tree.&amp;quot; \u2014Terri Murphy &amp;quot;I like strategically stringing white lights throughout the inside of the house and turning the lights out...this is wonderful when it&amp;#039;s snowing outside (:&amp;quot; \u2014Cindy Kelly &amp;quot;I like putting the tree up and decorating it, and lighting holiday scented candles, but probably won&amp;#039;t put tree up this year cause my hubby is going to be deployed. I will probably go to my hometown.&amp;quot; \u2014Elizabeth McElwee &amp;quot;I have a lot of decorations I&amp;#039;ve collected over the years. I have one ceramic figurine that I paid $1.00 at a yard sale, and it&amp;#039;s almost 50 years old. It has a date stamped on the bottom of it. I usually have a theme table that has red &amp;amp;amp; green linens and special decorations that have sentimental meaning to me. My husband and a close friend chop down a Christmas tree on our friend&amp;#039;s property. I determine how to decorate the tree based on its shape and size. Our only decorations outside are wreaths, but the inside always looks festive. Scented candles always are nice, too.&amp;quot; \u2014Glynis Buschmann &amp;quot;I love scented candles! I fill the house with festive smelling candles and decorate the tree in our garden with fairy lights. I drape them around the fence and shrubs, too. Then on Christmas Eve, when the children are asleep, my husband and I wrap up warm and drink spicy mulled wine in the garden.&amp;quot; \u2014Helen Grant "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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