A Neighborhood Holiday Tea: The Decoration

Decking the halls for the holidays is always more streamlined and efficient when there is a deadline involved. This year it was a neighborhood holiday tea that we Drake girls were hosting for our neighbors, family and friends. Now that the party is over, we are just sitting back and enjoying a relaxing holiday season.

(ha ha ha & ho ho ho.)

Decking the Halls

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells!
Our guests announced their arrival by ringing our 7′ long jingle bells
that hang over the traditional door bell at our front door.

Holiday Style Inside & Out
The decorations started outside with
festive holiday containers, garland and lots of ribbon.
Although the party started at 1PM, we lit all the twinkly lights.

Exterior Containers
Always wanting to bring a bit of the outdoors inside,
I used some of the same materials I collected to create
our outdoor containers (photo above), to design our interior
floral arrangements like; mixed greens,
Silver Bells, and Persiana eucalyptus.

Welcome!
Inside, our guests were greeted with more mixed-greens garland, crackling fires, candles galore
and many floral arrangements that included dozens of white lilies.
The scent of all of the greens, the eucalyptus and the lilies was lovely!

Interior Floral Arrangements
In addition to what I used outside,
I included ivy and boxwood from our garden,
lilies, and spray painted dried lotus blossoms.

Living Room Decorations
Mixed-greens garland frames the french antique mirror.
Candles burn in the hurricanes on either side of the lit fireplace.
A silver tea service is filled with Joy, a black tea,
and a very special green tea from the high mountain area of Taiwan.
A pair of petite floral arrangements in onyx vases sit atop
Barbara Barry oval end tables.
The decadent red globe grapes overflowing a large clam shell,
were a timely gift from my “Mum”, imported that day from
Nino Salvaggio in Detriot.

Living Room Christmas Tree
The tree seemed rather boring until I found
vintage gold ball ornaments with a great patina at a local antique store,
old fashioned hooks and all!

Petite Floral Arrangements
I used mini, dried lotus blossoms in the small vases.

Arakawa Art Hanging System
Many guests were asking how we hung the garland
on either side of the front entry arch
and on the French Antique mirrored fireplace.
This is a great hanging system for art and garland.
Once it’s painted to match crown molding, it virtually disappears!
(available at LaFontsee Galleries)

Antique Gold Ginko Leaves
We used all of the ginko leaves we spray painted to
sprinkle around the table tops.
Also pictured, even more luscious grapes from my Mum
cascading over an estate sale find, perfect condition, footed bowl.

Powder Room Arrangement
Consistency in floral arrangements is more cost effective
and it adds a feeling of cohesiveness to the flow of the party.

Silver Metallic Pinecones and Greens in the Kitchen
We spray painted a collection of different pinecones silver
then used them to decorate our kitchen in apothecary jars,…

Cloches, and…

Around our Lighted Rosemary Christmas Tree
I needed to hide the two large batteries for the lights,
so I set the white pot in a woven basket filled with painted pinecones,
the perfect foil!

Cedar Bows
Fresh cut cedar bows, from our garden
are peppered about our kitchen.

Family Room Fireplace
The spruce garland is held in place with
only two strategically placed screws.
These large, vintage looking lights are cool, but we put them on a dimmer to conserve energy
and to keep our greens from drying out too fast.

Our Christmas Tree!
In the corner of the family room our tree is lit with remote controlled lights
so we can turn them off and on easily.
It must be watered every few days!

Stay tuned,

A Neighborhood Holiday Tea Party: THE CELEBRATION
coming soon…

*Photo credit for most of the photos in this post: Jan Loridas (my big sis:)