How To Plan Out Your Christmas Decor
Every year, sometime between Halloween and Thanksgiving, I start thinking about my Christmas decor. I look through Holiday magazines and try to remember what I’ve got in storage and what style I’m in the mood for this year. Each year is different at my house! Let me give you some ideas as to How to Plan Out your Christmas Decor.
How to Plan Out Your Christmas Decor
Plan Out Your Christmas Decor with Color:
Christmas can be so much more than just the traditional red and green. You could add black and white to the red and green. You could pastel-up the combo and use pink and lighter green. You could go all white and add gold, silver or clear. You may want to use just one color as a focus, a couple, or go with a color combo.
Whatever color combination you use, it will be more striking if you stick with it throughout a whole room, or group of adjoining rooms. If you like it all, like me, decorate with a different color palette in another part of your house-your family room, your bedroom, your kitchen.
Simply divide your decorations by the colors and send them to the part of your home where you’ll be highlighting that color/s. If you’re going warm and cozy in your family room, bring the red balls in there to combine with browns, blacks, warm creams. Bring the greens into your kitchen to combine with crisp white and classic black. Without spending a lot for new decor, you’ll have a whole new look!
Plan Out Your Christmas Decor with Pattern:
Many years my themes come from a certain ribbon or fabric I’ve found. Plaid was very popular last year and could be found on stockings, throws, pillows. One year I centered my decorating on old fashioned ticking, ripping fabric into strips and incorporating them into all my greens and arrangements. You may find a certain ribbon at the crafts store that launches your theme. Last year I found a clearance black and white houndstooth 3″ ribbon that inspired my theme. {“Porch Decorating Fun”}
If you love vintage, you could focus your theme on old Christmas tablecloths or vintage embroidery, like redware.
Your color choices can follow your pattern choice.
Plan Out Your Christmas Decor with Texture:
Once you have your color and pattern choices, your textures may fall right into line. Do you want a little glitz and glamour, shiny and bright? Or do you want everything to be very natural and textural. Maybe you’re going for warm and cozy so knits and flannels will fit in perfectly. Or you want that Joanna Gaines farmhouse flair with some galvanized metal.
Think of how you can weave coordinating textures into the whole scheme.
Plan Out Your Christmas Decor with Special or Memorable Items:
Is there a certain set of glasses or dishes that have been hiding in your cupboards that could be a foundation for your theme? I scored a set of vintage green depression dishes this year {“Green Depression Glass and a Little Junk for a Garden Party”} and want to incorporate them into my Christmas styling. Even if you don’t set a fancy table for your entertaining, you can still enjoy those special pieces highlighted with some Christmas extras (pinecones, fake snow, ribbons, silk poinsettias, shiny balls) on your bookshelves or kitchen counter.
Having a plan ahead of time will alleviate the overwhelm and will produce a more unique, overall effect.
The holidays can be a stressful time and we all want to enjoy our family time and hospitality. Giving your home some extra sparkle just by arranging things in a new, unique way will be fun for yourself and trickle through to everyone else! You don’t have to spend a bunch of money on all new decorations. Just group them differently and put them in a room you’ve never had them in before.
If you need some more ideas, here are some of the ways I’ve decorated my home using these concepts. I like to put a name to my themes to describe them (and to keep them straight).
“All is Calm, All is Bright”, 2017
“Comfort Christmas House Tour”, 2016
“Shiny Brite and White Christmas”, 2015
“A Junky, Merry Christmas”, 2014
“A Junky, Merry Kitchen”, 2014
“Classic Colored Christmas”, 2013
By planning ahead, you’ll have more fun when it comes time to decorate and will enjoy the process so much more! Hope these How to Plan Out your Christmas Decor Tips got your wheels turning! You’ll be all ready for the after-Thanksgiving decorating!
Sharing at these lovely parties:
Love that green cabinet display, Lora! Thanks for sharing at Vintage Charm–pinned!
Thanks, Cecilia! The green dishes are always my favorite;)
Love this idea! Will give it a try! Love the vintage metal cookie cutters used as decor. I have some that belonged to my mom. Will display those this year.
Thanks, Rachel! Definitely get them out and display them this year…you can still make a couple dozen cookies with them;)
Lovely post, Lora! I really like to use color to direct my Christmas decor, too. I get off track sometimes, but it helps me have a direction! Love your beautiful decor…those mittens are adorable!
Thanks, Linda! Got the mittens at an antique store I was in years ago-my favorite color with the deer? Yep, couldn’t hold myself back!