Thanksgiving Decorating Hacks… Easy Transitions for New Orleans Constant Holidays!

Thanksgiving: Halloween gave us a good head start. We’ve got lights outdoors now for those super-short daylight savings hours. We still have gorgeous weather, so I added some large bulb string lights to our balcony and of all things, tiki torches (easy with zip ties on the iron railing) – and now we can get a few more outside hours in the evening, even though it feels so late!

Indoors, we’re almost good to go already. Fall colors are all around, and I just pull down our Thanksgiving table cloth, add a cornucopia to the piano with some of those cute, cute gourds they still have in the grocery store and some fall silk flowers.
Buy some scented candles with fall themes – I love the ones with wood wicks in cinnamon and eucalyptus fragrances, but there are millions of choices – spiced cider, pumpkin pie, and everything else at Cracker Barrel is a good choice. Febreez has an amazing line of very inexpensive candles with perfect selections for fall – right in the grocery store.

Tiki torches are creepy for Halloween, great no-electric lighting for those short fall days!

Tropical plants, abundant in NOLA, come in many fall colors.

String lights in white can be left up – well, forever!

Many things are in bloom right here in our gardens, so save the floral money for later… go pick a hibiscus, gather some geraniums, and use those prolific fern leaves for a million things. Also, whatever that ground creeper is that is sage green… so pretty all over the place and grows back quickly if you steal some for indoors.
In the garden… I’m adding a few more solar lights and keeping large pots of flowers so I can change them out if winter kills them. Great choices right now? Pansies! I’ve got one area all in white pansies in anticipation of Christmas (more to come), lantana in orange, which can be moved to the porch when I get to Christmas, geraniums in red and white – along with white jasmine, which won’t be blooming, but adds a nice thick green leaf to the area. Every time I fill a pot with flowers, I stick a solar lamp in it. This brings the white flowers to life beautifully at night.
So, we are not only ready for Thanksgiving, we’re getting ahead of the game for Christmas decorating – and that’s going to take a little more time.

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Anne