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TAKE FENG SHUI HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS
By Carol M. Olmstead, FSII
Certified Feng Shui Practitioner - Feng Shui For Real
Life -
www.FengShuiForRealLife.com
Many of us have a love-hate relationship with holidays
and the emotional family gatherings associated with
them. We love the aromas and the bounty of Thanksgiving
food, the colors of our Christmas and Hanukkah
decorations, the fun of buying and receiving gifts, and
the joy of seeing friends and family. But the strain of
cooking at those meals, cleaning and decorating the
house, putting up—and then taking down—the tree, and
entertaining all those out-of-town visitors can
sometimes result in more stress than harmony. The cause
of this discord may not be you or your family. It could
be how you arrange your house during the holiday season.
photo - Brebca
As you get ready for the holidays this year, try
following a few Feng Shui tips to balance the energy in
your home and create more good will toward men and
women—and a lot more fun.
Feng Shui (pronounced “fung shway”) is the art and
science of arranging your interior surroundings in
harmony and balance with the natural world around you.
Our surroundings have a powerful effect on what we
attract into our lives. When the energy around us—called
chi in Feng Shui—is blocked or unbalanced, our
relationships, prosperity, and family harmony can be
profoundly affected. Feng Shui changes work like
acupuncture for your home, unblocking the flow of energy
and making you feel more comfortable in your indoor
environment.
Based on an ancient Chinese practice, modern Feng Shui
offers common sense and real-world guidance for placing
furniture and objects and for using color. And that is
especially important during the holiday season, when we
add new colors, shapes, aromas—and people—to our
interior environment.
Feng Shui gives us advice for surviving the
entertaining, decorating, and gift-giving that surround
the holidays.
Holiday Entertaining: You Are What You Eat
photo - staff
The holiday season kicks off with Thanksgiving, the
ultimate food holiday. The colors, aromas, and tastes of
food are strongly related to good Feng Shui. Here are a
few tips to help you create a peaceful and harmonious
turkey day:
Use your dining room often during Thanksgiving because
it is considered a place of wealth in Feng Shui; this is
not the time to wolf down leftovers while sitting in
front of the TV.
photo - Elvin
Bring out the good stuff—the china, crystal, silver, and
all the other pieces hiding in your cabinets and
closets. What are you saving them for if not for the
holidays?
Use a centerpiece of orange flowers to encourage
conversation, or a display of fresh fruit and vegetables
to symbolize good health and longevity.
Entertaining guests is associated with wealth, so hang a
mirror that reflects your dining room table and you will
symbolically double your wealth.
Place bowls of nuts, dried fruit, and candy throughout
your gathering spaces, and pitchers of wine, sparkling
cider or mineral water in a central location to
represent the prosperity to continually feed guests.
In Feng Shui, we divide energy into yin (the dark, heavy
side), and yang (the bright, lighter side). Since the
winter months are the yin side of our energy, we need to
balance this darker, lower, colder energy with strong
yang energy in our food for the holidays. Cooked foods,
spices, and hot foods such as chile peppers, ginger, and
garlic, are the perfect yang choices for Thanksgiving.
Foods like raw vegetables and fish are yin, and are
better used in moderation during this period.
A round or oval table is best for Feng Shui-friendly
dining. The absence of sharp corners and hard edges
helps conversation flow freely, and keeps the energy
flow gently through the room. If you do have a
rectangular dining table, avoid seating your guests
close to the pointed corners where they could feel
uncomfortable during the meal.
If your family is prone to arguments, keep the yang
energy to a minimum where you eat: invite an even number
of guests, keep the lights low and soft, and decorate
with soothing earth tones like orange, gold, green and
brown. And be sure to keep shiny surfaces and sharp
edges to a minimum—remove the knife from the table after
the turkey is carved and you will avoid sharp words and
arguments.
Holiday Decorating: You are What You See
photo - Svetlana Gatova
What do the colors, shapes, and textures of your holiday
decorations and lights say about you? In Feng Shui, we
call these the colors and shapes The Five Elements. Each
Element has distinctive colors and shapes, so the tones
and hues you choose to decorate your holiday home have
particular meaning.
For example, the traditional Christmas colors are a
combination of the Fire Element (red) that represents
passion and emotion; and the Wood Element (green) that
represents growth and expansion. The triangular shape of
your tree is a Fire Element shape—whether it is a
traditional pine or an artificial tree. And when you
light up your house and your trees, shrubs, or even the
saguaro cactus on your lawn, you add additional Fire
Element energy to warm the dark winter days and nights.
We can also use Feng Shui principle to help decide where
to place your Christmas tree. In Feng Shui, we use a
chart called a bagua to divide a room into nine equal
areas, then locate furniture and objects in these areas
according to their colors, shapes, and meaning (See The
Bagua chart, below). To use this bagua mapping chart for
your tree placement, stand at the main entrance to the
room, draw the floor plan, then divide it into nine
equal area.
The ideal place to locate the tree is either in the
Power/Wealth or the Fame/Future areas of you home,
because triangular shapes displayed in these areas bring
passion and emotion into your life. Another good area
for the tree is the Family/Community area, because when
you display objects made of wood in this area they help
connect you to friends and family.
If you place the tree in the Self/Career area, use blue
lights and decorations and a blue/black patterned tree
skirt to help bring water energy into balance.
If your tree must be in the Creativity/Children area, or
in the Helpful People area, decorate with metal
ornaments, tinsel, white lights, and a silver or gold
accented tree skirt.
If your tree is in the Love/Relationship area or the
Knowledge/Wisdom area, use ceramic ornaments, yellow and
red lights, a red skirt, and skip the tinsel.
If you place the tree in the center of the room, known
as the Grounding/Balance area, chose a yellow or gold
tree skirt and a bright yellow star or golden angel at
the top.
Wherever you place your tree, because the triangular
shape of a Christmas tree is such a powerful Fire
Element symbol, it is especially important to place it
far away from seating areas to ensure that it does not
ignite your relationships with friends and family.
Avoid overdoing the
decorations. Many people think they have to put out all
of their decorations, whether they like them or not,
because of the emotional attachment to them. In Feng
Shui we recommend that you surround yourself with only
those objects you love, and holiday decorations are no
exception. If you truly do not like an object, no matter
who gave it to you or how long it has been in the
family, it is best not to display it. Try varying the
objects you display each year and you decorations will
become more meaningful.
Even if you do not have a tree, bring a bit of nature
indoors by displaying evergreen branches or poinsettias
to counterbalance the Winter darkness and limited light
of these shorter days.
If you decorate for Hanukkah, choose the traditional
colors of blue (Water Element) to make your holiday flow
smoothly, and silver (Metal Element) for strength. The
candles in the menorah will help to gather people
together, so place it where you want to create a focal
point and it will draw everyone a little closer for this
festival of lights.
For New Year’s Eve, decorate with the Metal Element
(gold and silver), which represents creativity and
focus. These are the colors of valuable coins, so
displaying shiny, metallic objects on New Year’s Eve
symbolizes your intention to attract wealth in the
coming year.
Holiday Gift Giving: You Are What You Give
A participant in one of my workshops asked about giving
her mother a gift of a high-quality kitchen knife, since
she knew her mother would never spend that much money on
it for herself. She had heard enough in my lecture to be
concerned about sharp edges and points.
Gifts of knives or anything with a cutting edge are
considered Feng Shui no-no’s because they symbolically
cut the relationship. Instead, I recommended that she
give her mother a gift certificate and enclose a picture
of the knife she wanted her to buy. She could also place
the gift certificate in a red envelope, since in Feng
Shui these represent honoring the recipient.
Here are the top six gifts to avoid during this holiday
gift-giving season:
Sharp Objects. Never give knives, scissors, letter
openers, or can openers as gifts since they represent
cutting a relationship; if you are the recipient of any
of these as a gift, hand over a coin to the giver to
symbolize that you bought the object and restored the
bond between you.
Empty Wallet. Avoid giving an empty wallet, purse, or
briefcase; instead, fill it with dollar coins (or a $50
bill if you can afford it) to send the message that your
gift will always be overflowing with wealth for the
recipient.
Thorny Flowers and Plants. Never give cactus or other
spiky plants, and avoid giving roses with the thorns
still on the stem because they can pierce a
relationship. If you receive roses, be sure to remove
the thorns to symbolize a smooth romance.
Stunted Trees. Avoid giving Bonsai trees or other
miniature plants since they represent stunted growth;
instead, choose full, healthy plants with rounded leaves
that symbolize prosperity and long life.
Clocks and Timepieces. Gifts that show the time
symbolize a limited life span or stealing time from
others; but because watches make such a good gift the
modern Feng Shui application is to give a gift
certificate and a picture of a watch so the recipient
can choose his or her own timepiece.
Handkerchiefs: Avoid giving handkerchiefs because they
symbolize wiping away tears and suggest that you expect
the recipient to be doing a lot of crying in the future.
Re-gifting is Feng Shui-friendly because it removes
things you do not want from your home and sends them to
a place where they are welcome. Just be sure to avoid
re-gifting if you have negative feelings about the gift
or its original giver, since you might be passing along
your negative thoughts to the next recipient.
Cleaning Up After the Holidays: You Are What You Keep
By the end of the holiday season you will probably be
drowning in a sea of packing peanuts, boxes, and bows.
Although you might be tempted to save them for next
year, it is good Feng Shui to throw them out. They
clutter your closets and cabinets and take up room that
should be kept open for new, better things to flow into
your life.
As you take down the tree and remove the ornaments, be
sure to throw out any burnt out strings of lights,
damaged ornaments, and holiday decorations that are so
out of style you don’t use them anymore. Remember to
scrape the candle wax off of the menorah.
Bring a little Feng Shui magic into your home this
season and your holidays will sparkle with peace and
harmony through the coming year.
Carol M. Olmstead, FSII, is a consultant,
author, and lecturer specializing in practical,
real-world applications of Feng Shui for today's
homes and offices. She provides residential and
business/office consultations and conducts
workshops and seminars for individuals,
businesses, and home buyers/sellers. For more
information and to subscribe to her free monthly
e-newsletter, go to: www.FengShuiForRealLife.com.
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