Last Minute Christmas Decorations

Wasn’t Thanksgiving just yesterday? You’ve got weeks to get all the Christmas decorating and shopping done right!?! Crap, you just looked at the calendar only to realize that Christmas is in a week and aside from the damn Elf on the Shelf that your kids absolutely LOVE and the Christmas tree, you don’t have any decorations up. You got this mom! Last minute Christmas Decorations don’t have to be tacky.

My daughter is ready to turn our house into Griswald Christmas the day after Thanksgiving. Me, not so much.

My birthday is in December, 2 weeks before Christmas in fact. When I was growing up, Christmas decorating didn’t happen until after my birthday. No celebrating two holidays, yes my birthday is a holiday, at once. Maybe that’s why I can’t wrap my brain around Christmas until about the week before.

So if you’re like me and you either haven’t gotten around to decorating or Christmas has just snuck up on you like it seems to do every year, these last minute Christmas decorations will help save your sanity when you can’t find anything decent left at the store.

Still don’t have your Christmas tree yet? Girl, you’d better get on that! Click here to read Candidly Natural’s awesome post about whether to use a real or an artificial tree.

Recycled Christmas Decorations

If you don’t want to spend a fortune or have simply run out of options for last minute Christmas decorations, you can hit up:

• Thrift stores
• Craigslist
• Social media buy/sell/trade sites

These are great places to find either supplies to make new DIY Christmas decorations or simply reuse them in your own home.

DIY Christmas Decorations

Another option is to make the decorations yourself. If you have kids, or even if you don’t, you’ve probably got a bunch of stuff laying around your house that can be turned into something awesome pretty quickly. Come on over to my Pinterest Christmas Home Decorating board for more details.

• Pinecones and spray paint – spray paint a bunch of pinecones and put them in a glass jar with some white lites to use on your mantle or as a table centerpiece.
• Old clothes and linens – turn old clothes into ornaments or stockings or even gift wrap or gift bags
• Christmas tree clippings – the bottom branches that get cut off can be used as mantle decor or table decor. If you stop by any place that sells Christmas trees, you can probably get the clippings for free. I’ve gotten some from Lowe’s just by asking.
• Old cards – cut up old cards to turn into garland or if you have a paper punch like this you can make fun shapes

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RELATED: 5 Fantastic Ways to Repurpose Old Greeting Cards

• Twigs – take the kiddos outside and gather some twigs to turn into ornaments
• Ball ornaments – fill these clear ornament balls with pom poms, sprinkles, confetti, broken crayons, anything you have laying around to add some color to your tree. Another idea would be if you have a bunch of ball ornaments but don’t like the color, spray paint them.
• Wine corks – turn old wine corks into ornaments, mantle decor, wall hangings, the possibilities are endless. I had a stash of corks that were just waiting to be used up.

RELATED: DIY Cork Projects in less than 15 minutes

• Jars/vases – spray paint old glass jars, wine bottles or vases and put in some twigs, pine branches or seasonal flowers
• Boxes – before you break down all those boxes from delivered packages, wrap them up with old wrapping paper or fabric or brown paper, put a bow on it and stack them like gifts

• Christmas card display – wrap a kitchen cabinet door with ribbon or hang ribbon on the side of the fridge to display the Christmas cards you receive
• Cookie cutter wreath – maybe you’ve got a bunch of old cookie cutters laying around that aren’t in the best shape. Glue them together, spray paint, slap a bow on it and boom – you’ve got a wreath.
• Mason jar lid wreath – maybe you used to be a canning fool but gave it up for any number of reasons. Click here for Project Zenstead’s great wreath made from mason jar lids.

Or you could head into the kitchen and make these awesome cinnamon ornaments from Strength & Sunshine.

Not only can these last minute Christmas decorations be done quickly and easily, they also don’t cost a fortune. Great for the frugal minded mom, like me!

Still working on buying gifts for everyone on your list? Click here to discover a variety of gift guides to help you knock even the pickiest recipient off your list.

Comment below and let me know which of these you want to try first.

Make it a green day!