How to Elevate Your Decorating at Home this Christmas

While many of us focus on shopping for Christmas gifts for our family, friends, colleagues, neighbors, and more each year and on planning our Christmas Day menu, it pays not to leave décor ideas until the last minute. 

If you’re hosting the festivities at your place this year, you may want to elevate your decorating and find ways to wrap presents beautifully while you’re at it, too. Here are some ideas to consider.

Christmas Table

You likely want your guests to say “wow” when they arrive at your house and see the table set up for Christmas lunch or dinner. If so, you’ll find that layering can go a long way. Use items with different heights across your table to create more visual interest in the space. You can place multiple-sized drinking glasses at each placemat, intersperse tall candlesticks with small votive candles to add light, and layer your dinnerware, such as entrée and main meal plates and bowls, on top of each other. 

Plus, add a centerpiece to the table to become the focal point of your holiday home décor for 2022. For instance, you could create a Christmas pedestal by adorning a cupcake stand with greenery, vines, tinsel, pinecones, and ornaments to look festive and merry. Another idea is to use a large clear bowl or vase for your centerpiece. Fill this with brightly-colored winter foods such as kumquats, cranberries, and more to add extra cheer to the room. 

It also pays to use some unexpected colors when decorating your table for Christmas. While red and green are traditional and look lovely, you might like mixing things up by using cool blue and white pairings, a color palette in silver and gold tones, or even a fresh black and pink combination. Have a play around to see what appeals to you. 

Christmas Tree and the Rest of Your Home

Another vital aspect of decorating for Christmas is readying your tree. Many people find that opting for a monochromatic color scheme gives the most bang for the buck. For example, create an impact with red and white ornaments and tinsel only, or choose gold, silver, blue, or white decorations. 

If you want to go further, why not add an advent-calendar feel to your Christmas tree? Use ornaments on it that are small pouches filled with little gifts or edible treats. You and your family and guests can take it in turns opening up these pouches and eating or enjoying the contents in the lead-up to Christmas Day. 

Pay attention to the rest of your home when decorating, too. In particular, you’ll want to add some extra oomph to your front door, the mantle above the fireplace, if you have one, and the railing of any stairs. You can adorn your front door with a pretty wreath you make or buy and perhaps add some lights to it, too. You might even want to place some blow-up or illuminated Christmas decorations in the entranceway.

You can hang your holiday cards from windows and shelves or pop them on the mantle, along with pinecones, juniper, winterberry, spruce, birch twigs, and other earthy types of dressings. Make your banisters look merry by wrapping them with tinsel, Christmas lights, ribbons, vines, and more. 

Christmas Gifts

Lastly, put plenty of time and care into wrapping the gifts you buy for Christmas. There are many ways to have some fun with this. You might buy beautiful tea towels or pick up vintage or luxury fabric from a store and wrap presents in these materials. Or, you can place goods in special boxes. 

If you have kids, give them butcher paper and let them decorate it with their own artwork with paint or crayons. They could also use woodblock or potato stamps, draw around their hands, or use some stencils to create pictures. This kind of decoration adds meaning and creates one-of-a-kind paper that recipients may want to keep. 

Another tip when wrapping presents is to consider layering. You could buy paper and toppers in numerous patterns but all in the same color palette, for instance, or create a mixture of stripes, polka dots, and other patterns. As for ribbons, one idea is to take leftover fabric swatches from your closets and cut them up to make interesting ribbons, or even top your gifts with fresh leaves and other greenery from your garden, such as mistletoe, pinecones, or ferns. 

Christmas provides an excellent opportunity to use your imagination and get creative with decorating. Just make sure you leave yourself plenty of time to get organized as all of this work takes time, and the last thing you need to be stressing about on Christmas Day or just before it is how your home and gifts look.