Some professional decorator tips for decking the halls

LITTLE ROCK — Matthew Mead’s favorite Christmas decoration is the wreath.

“It has that sense of tradition with it, but then there are so many things that you can make a wreath with,” says the 42-year-old lifestyle expert and home decorator. Vintage jewelry, small fruit, flowers and miniature packages are among the supplies he recommends.

Wreaths can also be made out of scrapbook paper, just like the one on the cover of his recently published magazine, Holiday With Matthew Mead, which includes instructions for making holiday crafts and desserts.

Mead also wrote the books Entertaining Simple and Matthew Mead: Halloween.

We recently spoke with him about livening up a home for Christmas. Here are excerpts.

Q. How do you decorate for Christmas?

A. I like to use fresh greenery and green wreaths and lots of ribbons to hang things.

Q. What are some examples of how food can serve as decorations?

A. I love to do a simple centerpiece where I fill a bowl with pomegranates and red apples. I fill the bowl halfway with water, and then put clippings of flowers and evergreens into that. The fruit holds all the flowers and all of the cut stems nicely. You end up with this beautiful centerpiece that almost anyone can make, and it takes about five minutes.

Q. What holiday-decorating traditions does your family have?

A. We like to go cut a tree down and gather evergreens from outside. And then we’d decorate by making garlands for the windows or filling our window boxes with evergreens and colorful berries. We also like to have a cookie-decorating contest where we bake a bunch of cookies and then we make royal icing.

Q. What are some fun crafts for kids to do?

A. Kids really enjoy cookie decorating. You could also takethe same concept and apply it to making ornaments for the tree. You can gather lots of different paper and wood cutouts and paint from the crafts store, and you can have the kids create ornaments. That’s easy andfun. And the techniques aren’t terribly different from having a cookie-decorating party.