My Best Tips For Planning Your Holiday Decor - Tricks and Tips From An Interior Decorator
/PLANNING YOUR HOLIDAY DECOR
A successful decorating project always starts with a good plan. The same is true when decorating your home for the holidays.
ADVANTAGES OF PLANNING YOUR HOLIDAY DECOR EARLY
Start decorating when you want
Execute your plan and do it once - a little tweak is okay
Feel less frustrated and have less stress
Having everything ready and organized to go lets you pick the start day without the rush
Everything will look coordinated and purposeful
Have more time to enjoy family and friends - and isn’t that what it’s really all about?
MAKE YOUR CHRISTMAS INVENTORY LIST
A great place to start planning your holiday decor is to take inventory of your existing Christmas decorations. Get those totes and boxes out of storage and go through them thoroughly, making note of what you love and what needs to go.
This is the perfect time to purge what might be broken or that you know you really don’t want any longer. Think about donating or repurposing when you can.
Plan what you might need to buy to fill in the gaps for what you’re planning. It might be time to upgrade that worn our garland or add some more twinkle lights. Can there ever be too many twinkle lights?
If you have the time, consider using Google Assistant to make your Christmas inventory list. A digital version is so easy to edit and update from year to year. I thought that adding what storage tote things are in on that list could be a big help too.
Make sure you have lots of gift tags, wrapping paper, Christmas bulbs for inside and out. And for your outdoor decor get twist ties for your garland and wreath hanging.
I organize at this point as I look through. I’m sometimes a bit rushed taking things down and last years decorations can end up in a bit of a mess, or something that is forgotten or missed ends up in the wrong tote at the last minute. You get the idea.
I pulled together wreaths last year and had my husband hang them in the garage for me. I realized I owned five of them. Two are lovely, one for the front door and the other for indoors. One came home with me from a thrift store with great intentions for a redesign that hasn’t happened yet. One is really old and kind of falling apart, and the last one is a shiny, kind of tacky plastic dollar store find that actually looked pretty decent outside when everything was red and white themed. When I say purge, I’m talking to myself too.
Once you’re a bit purged, organized and inventoried, you know exactly what you have that’s usable for this years decorating.
2. PLAN YOUR HOLIDAY DECOR THEME OR COLOUR SCHEME
I have a friend who likes to change up her Christmas colours each year. It really does keep things interesting and fresh. Not all of us can do that or want to do that. It’s all about your own decor style for your home, and not what everyone else is doing.
There are so many options to choose from. I tend to like gold and white with red for a pop of colour. When thinking about your theme, try to match it to your existing decor style. For instance, a glam Christmas theme might not work too great in a rustic country decor home.
You could easily add a new accent colour to what you already have to give your existing decor items a fresh look. I love to wrap empty boxes to look like gifts under the tree or set out on table tops here and there. I’ve made smaller packages and stuffed them in a set of three Christmas stockings that decorated my entry last year. Making them part of your decor theme and colours is very doable and so easy on the budget.
2022 Christmas Decor Themes
When planning your holiday decor you might like to incorporate some of this year's colour trends and themes:
• Bright crimson red with dark fir green
• Dark blue or black with gold and white
• Navy with gold, bright red, deep green or white (navy remains a popular decorating colour right now)
• Add some nature elements to your theme
3. MAKE YOUR SHOPPING LIST
Now that you have your inventory sorted out, it’s time to make a shopping list of what you need to buy to put this years decor together.
It’s seems that outdoor decor items are often the first to sell out, so you might want to put them at the top of your list, along with your tree if you’re needing one.
Get in a good supply of holiday wrapping paper, ribbon, ornament hangers and ornaments early on before things get picked over and you are left feeling disappointed.
4. DECORATE YOUR HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS
Now the fun begins.
Gather and assemble your items all together in one designated spot in the house. I try to keep my decorations in plastic totes and find them handy for stacking. They come up from the guest bedroom closet, or in from the garage, and live off to one side of the dining room while I work away at the decorating.
If you’re ordering online items, and I encourage you to do as much of that as possible again this year, be sure to place them in the appropriate tote as soon as you’ve unwrapped the delivery. Everything stays organized and ready to go when you are.
You can start the decorating any time the mood strikes. I like to go from room to room once I have the main ideas sorted out. Sometimes I get side tracked and hang all the window snow flakes throughout the house for instance, and then go back to complete the rest of a room. There are no hard set rules.
Make it fun, make it easy and enjoyable.
NEED HELP WITH PLANNING YOUR HOLIDAY DECOR OR
DECORATING YOUR HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS?
Experience our unique Christmas Decorating Services this year. We’ll assess what you already have and work with you to decorate your space for you!
Prefer to go the DIY route?
I’m sharing my FREE Christmas Room Planner Worksheet
Consider it an early Christmas gift from me, just for you, to help get you off to a great start!
