I just noticed in my dashboard site stats that I’m getting hits on some church christmas decorating I have done in the past.  I think I will dig through my digital photos and see what I can find.  I got to decorate at Northern Hills for 3 years, I believe and it was so much fun!

Here is one shot of the Celebration Center in 2009.

The 3 wreaths hanging in the center over the stage look deceptively small in the pictures.  You can’t just buy these at the store.  I made them from recycling Christmas trees other people want to get rid of.  I basically did a Craigslist ad asking for old artificial trees for a non-profit organization and people would call and I picked them up.  These three wreaths used the branches of 7 trees.  We built a wooden frame and stapled them on.  The one in the middle is almost 7 feet tall and the 2 flanking it are about 5 1/2 feet tall.  I used 2 102″ red table cloths sewn together in the middle to drape through the wreaths.

At the time, the church had 3  really beautiful 9′ trees and I used one in the cafe and the other 2 on the stage, but the room is large, so I wanted to make them seem more grand and did so by placing them on 5 foot round tables draped in fabric.

The illuminated angels were the beautiful styrofoam silhouettes my amazingly artistic friend Pearl had created for the Garage venue a year or two earlier.  It broke up the black background and we uplighted them.

We lined the front of the stage with a giant “garland” also re-fashioned from recycled/upcycled old Christmas trees.  You really can’t just buy garland because a room that big will just swallow it up.  It is really quite large.  The “ribbon” was that florist-mesh wrap which can be twisted and tucked and glows prettily in the lights.

We used thousands of lights on everything because you have to overdo in a big space.  I think I had gotten all those gold-potted poinsettias for like 98-cents in an after-Christmas clearance the year before.  They are handy for lining edges and covering cords.

see more pics from 2009 here :)

Very simple, clean look.  The musicians and pastors need their space!  It was fun.  I miss doing it (plus I wasn’t out of ideas)!!!  Pastor Scott??