10 Delicious Ideas For Holiday Decorations Slideshow

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1. Candy

Make your home a true "home sweet home" by decking the halls with your favorite candies. Start with a plethora of candies in all shapes and sizes. Build a creative Christmas Village with gingerbread houses and line the streets with gum-drop trees. Stick with the candy theme around the house and use hard candies to create wreaths. Tie three small candy canes with a red ribbon for a sweet place-card holder or fill candle holders with mints for a red and white twist. The sweet treats make for fantastic holiday eye candy (pun intended).

2. Vegetables

During the holidays, visions of sugar plums, tasty cookies, and decadent chocolates dance in our heads. However, vegetables are a great way to add style to the table on the cheap. String green asparagus together with red licorice and wrap around pillar candles. No centerpiece? Use cauliflower to make an edible Frosty by spearing cauliflower heads on a toothpick and accenting them with chopped raisins and carrots. Then stick Brussels sprouts and red peppers in glass vases to add delicious color to the fireplace mantle. 

3. Cranberries

Fill candlelit hurricanes of all sizes with cranberries and a dusting of glitter for a festive mantle décor. Or sprinkle the berries around the base of cranberry-colored candles and use festive accents like cinnamon sticks to bring out the display. With hot glue and shaped craft foam, you can create everything from cranberry topiaries to cranberry trees. Strung along your banister or around your tree, cranberry garlands are a great way to add a beautiful touch of food to your home. 

4. Popcorn

Popcorn is good for more than just garlands. Pile popcorn kernels around candles in a hurricane. Trim the tree with popcorn balls that as are pretty as they are delicious. While you could of course make wreaths or trees, this nifty little snack can also serve as "snow" on your windowsill or be used as Santa's beard in your kids' arts and crafts.

5. Gum

Kick the nasty chewing gum habit and put your addiction to good use! When used in wreaths, all-white gumballs are easily mistaken for tiny snowballs, while multicolored pieces can really brighten up your entry way! With a little hot glue, you can even make miniature snowmen to place in your wreath and around your home. 

6. Cookies

Cookies aren't just for gifting and eating. Put a hole at the top of a cookie and lace it with string for an easy holiday ornament that tastes good, too. Hang it in the windows to show off your baking skills to neighbors. Flat sugar cookies in star shapes of decreasing size stack well to create towering cookie trees. Personalized cookies make for the perfect place card at the holiday table, too. 

7. Dried Fruit

Who knew that the grocery store could rival Kmart when it comes to holiday decorations? Whole fruit is great for a unique centerpiece, but imagine slices of dried oranges, lemons, and limes nestled in a garland of anise stars and cinnamon sticks, or hung on the tree alongside slices of apple.

To dehydrate, core, wash, and slice your fruit to the desired thickness. Let slices sit in lemon water for three minutes. Place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet and bake in a 200 degree oven. Keep the oven door open to help circulate air and flip the slices often. Once all signs of wetness are gone, remove, completely cool, and store in airtight containers.

8. Ice Cream Cones

Though the weather outside may be frightful, ice cream cones are never out of season. Flipped over and frosted green, they make perfect Christmas trees. Filled with small candies and strung with string, cones double as a something unique for your real tree. You can also add some sparkle to your mantle by dipping each cone in a sugary glaze and edible glitter for a grove of glistening trees.

9. Cereal

Now there is a reason to get excited about cereal, aside from the cool prize in the box. With some Cheerios, green food dye, and Red Hot candies, you can mold evergreens for the table. Or, swap Cheerios for Rice Krispies and make wreath-shaped treats for a tasty ornament for your tree.

10. Nuts

Add different nuts to the base of hurricanes to dress up ordinary pillar candles. With googly eyes and pipe cleaners, a walnut also makes for a great reindeer ornament. A simple hook and red ribbon make a great door hanger for not only the knobs on your entry ways, but doors around the house. And don't forget a bowl full of nuts next to the nutcracker, for cracking.