I’m somewhat of a Christmas fanatic. I put up the Christmas tree as early as my husband will allow me and take it down as late as I can get away with (though usually before Easter). When we were in Europe on our honeymoon I dragged Nick into almost every Christmas shop I could find (and there were quite a few!). And if I can ever countenance the idea of not being home amongst family for Christmas I’ll be heading over to Germany for one of their Christmas markets.

As a result, every year at Christmas-time I head to the shops to browse through the miscellany of Christmas decorations and to dream. Sometimes I dream about buying them, and sometimes I’m inspired to go home and make it!

This year I went to Christmas Kingdom in Mentone and saw some lovely things. But one of the things that I spotted was an idea for an outdoor Christmas decoration:

Christmas giftboxes? I can make those! I have this annoying habit of keeping old cardboard boxes (mainly for when the kids decide they desperately want to craft something) and I possess a plethora of Christmas wrapping paper (since I buy mountains of paper after Christmas when it’s on special). Time to get to it!

It really was as simple as choosing some similarly coloured wrapping paper and some complimenting ribbons. I sticky taped the boxes closed and then just wrapped them. And wrapping cardboard boxes is a breeze compared to some of the challenges of wrapping presents for kids at Christmas!

Voila! Finished product:

Boxes wrapped and placed outside the front door! Husband is not best pleased (his idea of decorating for Christmas is to just a few streamers up on Christmas day). He also claims that it looks like someone has dropped a bunch of presents of for us. That hadn’t occurred to me, but it’s a lovely idea so they’re definitely staying there. At least until Nick puts his foot down…

How do you decorate your house for Christmas? Do you make your own decorations?