Much is in the form of intricately carved jewellery, or ornaments that families have handed down from generation to generation.

ECONOMIST: Golden fleece?

Even as images on cards, or as ornaments hanging in a window, angels perform their age-old function as messengers and mediators between the seen and unseen, or material and spiritual, worlds.

ECONOMIST: Angels

Neither have the handmade wooden toys, glass ornaments or marzipan bars on which we spent a small fortune for family members back home.

FORBES: Travel

How's this for clumsy goods handling: Warehouse managers can't decide in advance how to allocate storage space or assign labor to unpack and store shipments because, in some situations, until a container is unsealed, no one knows whether it contains glass ornaments or dining room tables (the containers aren't marked).

FORBES: The logistics of a dinner plate

Night vision goggles, GPS receivers, Sure Fire lights and radios are among the dozen or so electronic gadgets that hang off an infantry grunt like ornaments.

FORBES: Smart Guns Key to Next-Gen Soldier Systems

Still, we really liked a lot of the ideas and chose to focus on projects that could be done quickly, such as placing battery-operated lights in jars or vases in the windows instead of faux candles and filling clear-glass ornaments with confetti to hang on white tabletop trees as part of the dining-room-table centerpiece.

WSJ: Interior Designers Deck the Halls From Afar