Small projects infuse home with spirit

I have a confession to make. As much as I love fabulous holiday decorations, I sometimes have a hard time getting psyched to transform my home for Christmas. I stare at the skyscraper of storage boxes marked "Christmas decorations" and I sigh. But once I drag out the first box and start pulling out the baubles and bulbs, my heart beats wildly and I can't wait to deck the halls.

A surefire way to break through holiday decorating inertia is to ease yourself in, one small decorating project at a time, instead of trying to turn your entire home into a showplace in one day.

Here are a few high-impact spots you can spruce up in a jiffy.

Front door

Be sure to dress up your front door first. Not only making it sing, it will get you excited for the season and fake out your neighbors, who will naturally assume the inside of your home is as wonderful as the outside.

For a unique front-door treatment, hang a cheery red or green lantern from your door knocker. Tie it up with a festive bow, insert a battery operated candle and fill in with some winter greenery, and you have a killer display in a matter of minutes.

Light fixtures

Decorating the chandelier in your dining room, kitchen or entry is a great way to achieve maximum drama with minimum effort. Plus, it's super easy to make your light fixture look like a million bucks without spending a fortune. Just invest in some natural-looking faux greenery, craft wire and ornaments and you're ready to go.

Start at the top of the chandelier, where the chain meets the ceiling, and secure one end of the greenery garland, leaving about 6 inches to dangle down or fan against the ceiling. Then loosely loop and weave the greenery down the chandelier chain and around the arms of the light fixture, skipping some so the look is uneven and random. The key to an awesome treatment is to make the greenery look as natural as possible, as if it actually grew up the chain.

Then hang tree ornaments at different heights from the arms of the chandelier. Or, if you would rather, suspend prisms, pine cones or creamer pitchers.

Centerpiece tableaux

Creating a memorable tableau on your dining room table, buffet or coffee table doesn't have to take more than a minute. Cluster a group of apothecary jars or pedestal bowls on a beautiful tray or mirror, then fill each with ornaments, beads, garlands or winter nuts and berries.

Kitchen window

If you have a window over your kitchen sink, perk it up with some holiday charm so doing dishes isn't such drudgery. Take a vintage celery jar and fill it with paper white bulbs, then enjoy watching them grow and bloom through the winter. Or find a charming glass canister and fill it with colorful holiday candy, like peppermint ribbons, and place it on the windowsill.

Dazzling mirrors

Give your walls a bit of sparkle by adorning the mirrors throughout your home. For a fast and fabulous look, tuck a few holiday picks behind a corner of the mirror, drape it with natural-looking faux greens or hang ribbons holding ornaments down over the face of the mirror.

Fireplace mantel

Sometimes I completely transform my mantel for Christmas. But this year I'm just going to spice up my normal mantel display with a few holiday additions. If you'd like to keep things simple this year, tuck greenery picks or a bough of garland around your normal still life. If you have candlesticks on your mantel, put a bit of adhesive at the top of the sticks and crown them with pretty tree bulbs.

Mary Carol Garrity owns three home furnishings stores in Atchison, Kan., and wrote several books on home decorating. Write to Mary Carol at nellhills@mail.lvnworth.com. Her column is syndicated by Scripps Howard News Service.