It’s no secret to my friends and family that the Christmas holiday season is my favorite of all the holidays. Maybe it’s the spirit of giving, maybe it’s the magic and mysticism behind it. Or, maybe… just maybe it’s the decorating.
It’s definitely the decorating.
I get so excited about the decorating part because, to me, it’s the first step toward getting into the Christmas spirit. A wonderfully cozy house encompasses all that winter holidays represents; your house feels like a hug, and well, that makes your heart all gooey with huggy feelings, too. And isn’t that what Christmas is all about? Hugs? I thought so.
Decorating for the holidays can be an expensive endeavor if you don’t plan and think ahead. Holiday decorating can also turn your house into Kitsch Fest if you’re not careful. Over the years, I’ve taken a lot of care to decorate my entire house relatively cheaply while also making sure to work in some of those fun, kitschy decorations without looking like an unabashed collector.
As my gift to you for the holiday season, I give you a few tips on decorating your entire space with elegance and without going broke. Follow these simple ideas and you may have some money in your pocket to donate to those in need this season, too.
Tip #1: Catalog shop at discount stores
Once upon a time I went to a tablescaping class at Pottery Barn with my friend, Kristin. Here we learned the rules of making eye-catching seasonal decorations on your dining table, shelving units, sideboards, etc. It was pretty enlightening – and expensive, that is if we were to buy everything in the store they had just decorated their table with.
We didn’t.
We B-lined straight for discount stores I love so much: Marshall’s/TJ Maxx/HomeGoods. Here, we looked for principles, not replicas, of what we’d just learned about at PB. We scarfed up anything we could get our hands on at a fraction of the price and had a field day decorating our homes.
While I haven’t attended another decorating seminar at Pottery Barn since, I still shop at discount stores with PB in mind. Instead of using a Pottery Barn consultant to guide me, I use the catalog.
This is how I shop:
Literally. I take pages I like from catalogs and I go straight to the discount stores. My goal is not to replicate exactly what I see, but rather to capture the essence of the ‘scape.
Don’t receive catalogs from your favorite stores? That’s OK; it’s easy to sign up online at any one of their websites.
The true trick to catalog shopping at discount stores, especially a place like Marshall’s/HomeGoods is to look beyond the seasonal aisles and get creative with items from other sections like kitchen, home organization, or textiles.
Take a look at this picture of my dining room table. It’s simple (that’s sort of my jam). First, you may notice some elements from the Pottery Barn catalog I had in my hands in the first picture. Maybe you can also see what I mean by “capturing the essence” of the catalog rather than seeking to replicate.
Almost this entire tablescape came from Marshall’s. The only item that came from the seasonal section of the store is the Christmas tree. I found everything else with a careful eye in another section of the store. The mercury glass came from both the clearance section and the kitchenware section. That fuzzy white thing? I got that in the rug section. Yeah, that’s a faux fur accent rug that cost $16 dollars, which was less than a tablecloth I’d pondered in the seasonal section.
All told, I captured the ideas within the Pottery Barn catalog without forking over my (lack thereof) fortunes. What you see here cost less than $50 and, when it’s lit up, looks marvelously festive. If I were to buy the same items from the Pottery Barn catalog, I would have spent over $300. Ouch!
Tip #2: Decorate for “winter” first
Anytime you commit to decorating for a holiday you commit to spending some cash on the endeavor. That’s just how it goes. I’ve found over the years that you get more bang for your buck if you plan for a general season first and the holiday secondary. That way, your decorating can last longer than a few weeks or a month and you’re not broke in the end or really stressed out from always redecorating.
Throughout my house you’ll see smatterings of Christmas rather than a North Pole explosion. Unfortunately for us this year, all of our Clothique Santa Clauses are in storage at our parents’ house, so our tree will be our only “Christmas.” That said, I usually like to put one or two distinctly Christmas items in one room at a time, making sure I’ve balanced it with decorations that will last until March.
My living room, with the exception of the Christmas tree, is a great example. Within reason, I’ve loaded the flat spaces (which I view any “flat space” as “decoration space”) with items that speak to winter. You’ll notice a fur throw, white pillow, mercury glass, some pine greenery, and what you can’t smell is the balsam candle hanging out on the rattan ottoman. All of these things are inherently “winter,” not “Christmas.” That said, my decorations will last long after Christmas has come and gone. This means I won’t just save money, but I’ll save time in having to redecorate for “winter” after December 25.
Tip #3: Switch your pics
This is my favorite tip that I rarely see my friends and family use. Switch out your pictures in frames to fit the season! Find a few photos that are winter related and replace your fun summer, vacation or family pics with those. It could be family playing in the snow, your last ski trip, even a snowman you made once upon a time. If you live in a place that doesn’t have winters like we do in the northeast, I’ve found that pictures in black and white or low saturation work so well to represent winter. Or, if you really don’t take photos and don’t have any lying around that you’d deem frame-worthy, you can print a number of winterscape photos from Flickr’s Creative Commons.
In the Spring/Summer I like to decorate my space with photos I took of blossoms like you see below. They brighten the space and make it feel alive. I accent that with a candle whose scents match the season (our favorite is Turquoise Sky by Yankee Candle).
In the winter, I’ve found that photos of blooming flowers aren’t appropriate and just end up leaving me longing for some warmth and sunshine. To fit the mood of the season, and the theme of “comfy,” I replace my Spring/Summer shots with photos I’ve taken around winter time. I change out the candle again to fit the season (Mountainside Lodge by Yankee Candle) and I’m good to go.
The change is subtle, but the photo switch is a nice complement to the rest of the decorations I have around the house.
Here’s a simple photo switch example using my bookshelf:
Tip #4: Mix up your materials
I have a valid fear of being the “Kitschy House,” in the same way I have a healthy fear of spiders. The chance of encounter is real, and I remain vigilant in avoiding situations where I sometimes literally fall into the web. Bletch!
Too much of a good thing is a bad thing. Right? Need proof? Go review video of Katey Sagal as Peg Bundy in the 90’s sitcom Married with Children. Yowsa! Too much leopard print for me! And I really like leopard print. I also really like sequins, but I’ve got to be careful not to use too much in my house. I don’t want my house to look like a chintzy cabaret.
To save myself from having a visually offensive house that looks like it’s been decorated by a kindergartner, I stick to a simple rule of thumb: Decorate every room with a little bit of the Wu Xing (Five Elements). If you’re unfamiliar with the Five Elements, they include: earth, wind, fire, metal, wood. Couple that with the five elements of design (line, texture, color, scale, shape) and you’re golden!
I think it’s important to note that I use the Five Elements in more of a loose, interpretive state rather than a literal interpretation. In every room I try to have something made of wood, something made with metal, a piece from nature (like flowers or plants), a piece whose color/pattern/textures resemble the sky (wind) and either candles (literal fire) or something with a pop of warm colors like red, yellow, orange.
I’ll use my dining room as an example. On both my sideboard and my buffet cabinet you will notice a similar transformation: Candles (fire), greenery (Earth), rattan decor/candlesticks (wood), mercury glass (metal), and something “airy” – this is a loose interpretation, but the glass globe on the cabinet and the crackle glass candle-holder on the sideboard fill the spot.
That said, while I’m shopping, I actively seek out these items. So, for example, I was at HomeGoods buying my decorations for our new house here in RI and I actively looked for the pieces I mentioned before. My eyes are naturally drawn to shiny things (hence the sequin statement earlier), but as soon as I picked up a pillow with sequin on it, I mentally checked that off my list and moved on to wood. Once I found a piece of wood – in this case it was a wooden tray – I moved on to metal, and so on.
When I had one or two pieces to represent all the Five Elements, I was done. I forced myself to walk past all the other cool things in HomeGoods and straight to the cash register. That’s how I avoid overload of any one thing in my house.
With this theory in mind, you end up with a space like my living room here. Can you see each of the Five Elements? 
Tip #5: Throw in seasonal pillows
Hi, my name is Missy and I’m an accent pillowholic. Truly. There’s just something about Marshall’s/HomeGoods’ pillow section that screams to me. I try to put the blinders on when I pass that aisle, but whenever I’m in need for a pillow update it’s like Supermarket Sweep in there. I can’t help it. I like pillows.
A long, long time ago, I discovered that accent pillows are a great way to freshen up your living spaces without having to do a huge overhaul. I keep the paints and furniture neutral, but use accent pillows to pop in the color for me. I’ve even gone so far as to remove factory couch pillows (you know, the ones that come with the set?) only to replace them with fun colored accent pillows.
It’s a relatively inexpensive decorating tip that can totally transform your space. I took my living room pillows from summer and stored then in the giant Ziploc vacuum bags; I replaced them with some wintery pillows that will suffice from December until March when our winters start to end.
In my living room (above), you’ll notice I changed out every pillow on the couch. I decided to do so because every pillow I’d had before looked too nautical for the winter. In my family room (below) I repurposed some of the pillows I’d already had there and added a couple more that I’d found on the shelves at HomeGoods. This ends up saving money and storage space by incorporating some staple pillows in your year-round decor.
Tip #6: Change out bedding
This is a super simple trick and I don’t know why I didn’t do it sooner than a couple years ago. By changing out your bedding, you give your room a different vibe instantaneously. I don’t know about you, but I like the fact that my bedroom decor doesn’t end up in Stagnant Land, leaving me bored or disinterested with being there (maybe I’m alone here, but I actively avoid rooms in my house that don’t feel stale and updated). On a broader note, changing out your bedding gives you the opportunity to deep clean your duvet covers/comforter, duvet, summer/fall sheets, blankets, etc. Let’s be honest. When was the last time you jumped out of bed on a Saturday to wash your comforter/duvet? If you say ‘last weekend’ I’ll either call you a liar or call you up to hire you to be my cleaning person. Unless I have a really good reason to clean my duvet cover and dry clean my duvet, it’s not happening.
SO! When winter comes and I’m looking to get into the Christmas spirit all throughout my house, I change out my duvet/duvet cover. I also try to convince my husband that we must have the reindeer flannel sheets on our bed, but he only bites on that when it’s -10 or colder outside –much to my chagrin I’m not joking. For Christmastime then, I settle for a simple duvet change and anxiously await the day I get the green light for the flannel sheets.
The change is simple, but maybe you’ll notice, like it did, that the color/mood of the room feels different. Whereas in the summer and fall (left), my bedroom linens cast a warm tone about the room; the winter duvet – in grays, blues and whites – casts a cooler tone around the room. What you can’t see here because (my gosh!) I need a wide angle lens is that the rest of the room has mixed metals (silver and gold) and the small, gray upholstered chair in the corner has a nice little fur throw over the side. I tell you this because all those components help round out the bedding changes I made.
There are officially 11 days before Christmas and fourteen weeks left of winter. That second part sounds horrible doesn’t it? Well, I suppose it would be if you didn’t have really awesome decorations to stare at for the duration. Lucky for you, you’ve got a few new decorating tips under your belt to help you hunker down and cozy up for the upcoming winter.
What is your favorite decorating tricks for winter?
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