Dig in the trash to decorate for the holidays

photo by baldheretic

Last Christmas I couldn't wait to take down the tree and all the other tacky Christmas decorations around my house. I wasn't feeling creative or festive when I put them up which was boldly obvious from the lame way I put up our outside lights. And now that the season is creeping up once again. And oh my I am surprised by how many of neighbors have already had their trees and outside lights turned on for over a week. Isn't there some sort of law that you can't do that until the day after Thanksgiving? Or am I just being a bit too Bah-Humbug? Maybe they've caught the spirit of the season early---good for them. I hope it rubs off on me.

But dragging out the ancient boxes of ornaments and artificial garland and lights and lights and lights is bringing me down more than anything. So instead I keep thinking how can we do it different? Honestly I think it was more festive before we gathered all that stuff. Our tree was decorated with popcorn and cranberry garland and gingerbread cookies. But over the years we've accumulated so much stuff.

I have however been inspired, probably for the first time, by a shopping mall. Belmar Center's marketing team must have shared my feelings when they were planning their holiday decorating. They opened their boxes, sighed and thought "what a bunch of junk". But instead of chucking it all away or dumping it at the Goodwill donation center and running away they got creative.

Belmar gave old decorations and some other "junk" a new life as recycled holiday trimmings with a very Colorado feel. Actually the team at Belmar has been at the recycled decoration bit for 4 years now. This year they're really on a roll and have taken creative recycling to a new level. It started in 2004 when they used old artificial Christmas trees to make new wreaths and other "greenery". This year they took the idea a step further to create seven, 20-foot in diameter wreaths made from recycled Colorado Avalanche hockey sticks and pucks, empty wine and beer bottles, past issues of 5280 magazine, Belmar shopping bags, Chipotle cups, skis and rope. The Avalanche and others were of course happy to indulge and unload their used stuff. Hey, wouldn't you love it if someone asked for your trash?

Seeing what they've done makes me all warm inside and I think I'm ready to pull out those boxes and take a new look at my old junk. Oh but then there is that tree thing...I'll tackle that another day.