Are you tired of plopping the same old cornucopia and candle every year on the mantle, now that it’s Thanksgiving? Looking for some easy and clever ways to decorate this year using what you have on hand? Look no further!

In fact, every season offers opportunities to bring the colors and symbols of the holidays and activities into your home, and you don’t need to spend a fortune to create these. If for example, your living room walls currently feature seascapes with the bright colors of summer, look for winter landscapes such as familiar Grandma Moses or Currier and Ives prints, or still life art featuring the bounties of the harvest. Your local library often rents or loans prints to its patrons at no charge, but prints can be found online as well, very inexpensively.

Swap out the light color pillows and throws of spring and summer and bring in the warm and texture-rich colors of autumn and winter holidays: deep greens, wine reds, gold, and winter white. Look for knits, plush, fleece, velveteen, and corduroy fabrics. These enhance the feeling of warmth and welcome.

Using a glass bowl (such as a trifle bowl), earthenware mixing bowl or wooden salad bowl, arrange gourds and small pumpkins and weave a battery-powered string of miniature lights among them for sparkle.

Spring and summer flowers such as hydrangeas, lilacs, roses and peonies are lovely in a tall crock or pitcher. Now that the garden is asleep, replace these with evergreens, winter berries, bright maple and birch leaves, These remnants of the landscape remind us that Mother Nature isn’t sleeping, just in transition.

Fill a tall glass vase with potpourri, popcorn (unpopped or for a change, popped but with no butter) and stick faux autumn leaves in it. Here’s another clever idea for a centerpiece using acorns at Untrained Housewife.

Use flat sheets in various colors for holiday tables, which you can buy in January at white sales or at discount stores all year round. Look for plaids or gingham in colors like red and white, blues, and deeper shades of yellows and oranges – whichever coordinates with your dinnerware and décor.

Those floors that were comfortably bare in summer, will be much more welcoming to family and guests’ toes if you can add an area rug or two in gathering places. You might have stored these away last spring, or maybe you can switch them around from other rooms. A change of scene is a good thing for rugs – it evens out the wear and the fading from sunlight. Sheer curtains and light drapes aren’t much protection from drafts, so this might be the time to hang insulated drapes or add heavier weight fabrics as window treatments.

Even the houseplants can be easily made over for the holidays by changing the containers from summer-weight plastics or wicker to earthenware, ceramic, and clay. Remember to provide for extra humidity in winter by placing houseplants on trays with pebbles, and adding water to the tray periodically. Add a scented candle to the grouping of plants, or a holiday themed figurine or colorfully wrapped “present” to delight the eye.