How to Decorate Your Home for Christmas

Christmas is just around the corner, which means it’s time for the annual tradition of putting up your Christmas decorations! If you often find yourself pining for some festive inspiration, or you’re just looking to make your decorations stand out this year, you’re in the right place. From setting a theme and colour scheme to unique tree decorations and getting ready for a visit from Santa, we’ve got everything you need to decorate your home and impress this festive season.

Setting the Scene: Themes and Colours

One of the ways you can create an outstanding Christmas aesthetic in your home is to coordinate the colours and theme for each space carefully. Having a theme or colour palette for each room that links everything together can really help make your decorations feel more planned out, rather than simply having a range of various decorating styles. For example, you could have your living room in a rustic, natural theme with pine garland, pinecones and robins, while your kitchen or bedroom might be in the style of a snowy winter wonderland with white snow, silver decorations and snowflakes. Here are a few of our favourite classic Christmas colour schemes and decorating themes (plus some unique new modern ideas) for you to try out!

• Red, green and white
• Gold, green and red
• Silver and white and blue
• White, silver, and violet
• Black, purple, dark red and navy

Why not try creating a soft, cosy Christmas relaxation zone by decorating your lounge with soft twinkling lights, thick comfortable blankets and rustic accents such as DIY wooden ornaments, all lit by a selection of various candles around the room. Then, to top it all off, some comfy slippers and a hot chocolate in your favourite Christmas mug? Or create a crisp, modern Christmas aesthetic by using lots of white and bright colours, combined with minimal decorations and making simple, clean lines with your decorations. You can even get white Christmas trees, decorated with beautiful silver baubles and elegant white lights to really complete the modern xmas look.

The Perfect Christmas Tree

How you decorate your tree is a hugely independent and personal choice, and it often comes down to a mix of your preferences and your experiences of Christmas growing up. However, if you’re interested in taking it to the next level this year, here are a few tips to spruce it up.

1. When choosing what to put on your tree, make sure it fits the themes and colours you’ve picked out for the room. Play into the colour schemes you chose earlier and make sure that your baubles, tinsel, lights and even tree colour all work together. If you’re going for a traditional theme, this can easily be achieved by picking two or three main colours and keeping to those. Or, if you’re going for a more modern feel, why not go for a more unique tree in a different colour or get a fake tree with LED lights built into the branches? You can even get modern minimal trees which are made up of rings of decorations, suspended in the air to form the Christmas tree outline. So, mix it up, do some research and see what you like!

2. Once you’ve picked your tree and sorted the colour scheme, the next step is decorating, and that’s where our next tips come in handy. Of course, there are the baubles and classic twinkling lights, but if you think outside the box, you can often find that festive toys, figures, crackers, and little sentimental ornaments can make a great personal touch to your tree. You can even make your own decorations, from personalised photo baubles to fun DIY tree decorations that look incredible, such as the wood cross-section Rudolph ornaments or the gold hand-lettered baubles. Overall, think outside the box! Get creative with your decorations and you’re sure to catch peoples eyes.

3. While we’re at it, who says you can only have one Christmas tree? For our last tip, we say that more is more! We love putting miniature Christmas trees in the décor of other rooms, each in its own style. So why not decorate a mini tree for your bedroom or guest room, or get a real tree outside the house? (That way, you don’t have to worry about it dropping needles on your carpet!) Each tree can have a unique theme or style, letting you experiment with a range of decorations and really show off your festive spirit.

Getting Ready for Santa’s Visit

It’s not long now until Santa’s visit, so make sure you’re prepared with your stockings hung up and mantlepiece decorated to make him feel at home! If you have a fireplace, this can easily become the festive focal point of the room, decorated with candles, pine branches, robins and garlands. If your room doesn’t have a fireplace, a wreath can also make a great Christmas focal point, surrounded by banners, Christmas cards and more – who says a wreath is just for the door?

Complete the preparations with some mince pies and milk (or maybe a glass of wine!) for Santa and some carrots for his hard-working reindeer. Who knows, maybe the kids will find the mince pies missing and a bite taken out of the carrot on Christmas day? You can even track Santa and play Christmas games as he travels the world, seeing where he is at each hour, as long as the kids are in bed before he reaches your house!

Showing Off for the Neighbours

One of the best bits about Christmas is the friendly competition between neighbours regarding their Christmas lights and decorations on the front of their house. There’s something so magical about going for a walk on Christmas eve and admiring all of the decorations garnishing the houses on your road, keeping track of who has the best decorations and deciding on a favourite.

There are a few ways you can make your decorations stand out from the rest of the street when it comes to showing off to the neighbours, whether you’re coordinating a huge scene across your house and front garden, or simply decorating the windows of your flat for passers-by to admire.

A great way to make your Christmas decorations unique is to tell a story or capture a scene. So rather than just collecting festive-themed lights and garlands, why not think of a story and set up your decorations to show a funny or cute scenario? Adding little touches like this on top of your icicle and snowy lights helps draw your decorations together, creating a unique Christmas scene. Here are a few of our favourites for you to try out!

• Father Christmas getting stuck in the chimney, complete with his reindeer grazing on the lawn and presents scattered around. (You can even add a sleigh or fake sleigh tracks to really make it look real!)
• A family of snowmen on the lawn, building a new friend out of snow and putting on the hat, scarf and gloves. If it’s not snowy where you are, you can add some fake snow around the scene to sell the snowy winter scene.
• A gathering of winter animals and creatures playing in the snow. From penguins and polar bears to reindeers and foxes, these adorable winter beings are sure to turn some heads in your front garden!

When Should You Put Up and Take Down Your Christmas Decorations?

When you should put up and take down your Christmas decorations is highly debated every year. One common suggestion is that your Christmas tree and other decorations should go up on the first day of advent, the fourth Sunday before Christmas. However, many people like to revel in the Christmas magic a bit longer, with some putting up their trees in November or even earlier. So, what’s the correct answer? It’s up to you! If you can’t wait for Christmas, there’s nothing wrong with putting up your tree a bit earlier to get into the festive spirit.

When it comes to taking down your Christmas decorations, tradition suggests that you should take down your Christmas decorations on the Twelfth Night, 12 nights after Christmas Day. Although realistically, there’s nothing wrong with taking your Christmas decorations down whenever is convenient for you. After all, who says Christmas has to end on a particular day? If you’re enjoying the festive magic that it adds to your home, why not keep them up all year round? Okay, maybe not… but it is true to say that there’s no correct time for you to put up or take down decorations apart from when you’re ready.

Christmas Home Décor Gifts

If you’re looking to make your Christmas decorations a bit more personal, look no further than our range of customisable Christmas home décor gifts. From photo upload snow globes to baubles with your face in them and even coasters, cushions, candles and more, browse an amazing range of festive home gifts, perfect as a present for a loved one or to decorate your home. Explore more Christmas gifts here.