It’s that time of year again. Time to dig all the Christmas decorations out. If you’re anything like me, your Christmas zone is probably packed to the rafters with things you’ve accumulated over the last few decades. Mine is like an archeological dig: I carefully excavate my storage boxes from their resting places and squeal with delight when I open each to reveal the contents. It doesn’t matter that all the plastic boxes are clear and labeled, I still re-discover my treasures every year.
I wouldn’t categorize myself as a Christmas hoarder but, let’s just say I don’t edit my decorations very often. That’s not to say I put everything out each year, I certainly don’t. Having such a large and diverse collection of Christmas decorations is great when I want to showcase a certain color or theme. The tricky part is how to choose what makes the list from year to year. I love having choices, but it can be tricky to decide some years.
To put it another way, I am not a minimalist. I love and admire a simple and beautiful, minimal Christmas theme but that’s not how my holiday DNA works. I go in with the intention of simple and paired back but I always seem to come out with a slightly more is more design.
Luckily, I always get compliments and people asking me how I start my process and how I get my tree and theme to look the way I want it to look. My favorite Christmas theme is classic and traditional décor. That just means I stick to the theme of building a meaningful collection of Christmas decorations. Trends come and go but having a curated collection of decorations that look amazing and are meaningful is where classic and traditional Christmas lives. Here’s 13 creative secrets to make your classic, traditional Christmas look amazing!
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Secret 1: Start with a Color Theme
Just like decorating any room, I like to pick a color theme that works well for my home. I use what I already have in the space as my base for my Christmas decorations. I know the colors already work and I know that I like them too, so this is a great place to start. The year that I went with this gold and white theme, my walls were a lovely blond gold color. It was Sherwin Williams “Blond” and it was so pretty. My upholstery was off white and I had accents of cream and gold paired with my dark wood accent pieces. One of my trees, was flocked and it was the perfect base for this traditional gold and white color scheme. To give it just a little bit of contrast, I used red as my accent color, the 10% ratio to my 60% white and 30% gold. I had a red crocheted throw blanket on the sofa and small hints of it in the ornaments and garlands throughout the rest of the space.
Secret 2: Ribbon Instead of Garland
The next place to focus was getting the ribbon for the tree. I love to incorporate wired ribbon as the garland on my tree because it’s easy to wind around the branches and I can give the tree volume, color and texture depending on what I want it to look like. I change out the color every year to keep things interesting. I love to buy my ribbons off season or at the end of the season so I can get the best deal on it. It makes a huge difference when you need to cover a 7’ tree. Typically, it takes 7 spools of ribbon to cover a 7’ tree. I like to have more to tie in the color elsewhere as well: garlands, wreathes and my exterior greens as well.
Secret 3: Make Bows as Tree Toppers
This works great if you don’t have tall ceilings or you want to add volume to the top of the tree. So, I will use about half a spool of ribbon on my bows for the treetop. Depending on how full you want it to be, it will take 2 to 4 bows to cover the top it’s visible from all sides. If you’re not comfortable making your own bows, you might be able to have them made for you at your local craft store. I know you can also find readymade options in a lot of stores as well.
Secret 4: Go Vintage
I love to include my older ornaments: I have many ornaments form my grandmothers and my mother. They are beautiful and sentimental, and I love to display them. Some are handmade like this sled and others are store bought but have a particularly vintage style that is so special. The saying, “everything old is new again” is the perfect sentiment to embrace for Christmas because you can relive so many memories when decorating the tree. If you don’t have a lot of ornaments form family, a great place to find them is the thrift store, you can find old ornaments galore for really no money at all in the thrift stores right now. I also love to look at the Christmas decorations at estate and garage sales too. Best time of year to hunt those down is summer. Usually the prices are super inexpensive because they just want to get rid of stuff. Don’t wait too long.
Secret 5: Get Personal
I love to display personalized ornaments with names, special dates or from special occasions or family trips in the tree because they remind me of those times and that’s what the holidays are about. I made this one for all of my work friends a few years ago. It’s a clear glass bulb with some artificial snow and little red and green pom poms with tine pinecones and greens inside. I got the stick-on cursive letters form the craft store and I personalized each one for my friends and added a simple silver ribbon and bow to each one. I couldn’t resist making one for myself as well. Personalized décor can really add a beautiful classic, traditional touch to any holiday decorating scheme. You can hand paint the family name on signs, trucks, sleds, really anything that you want to display.
Secret 6: Rotating Tree Base
This is a must have for my house. I love my rotating Christmas tree base because it allows me to put my tree is a corner and still have access to the entire thing when putting the ribbon on it. I simply turn it on and rotate it to the position I need it to be in and then I turn it off, place my ribbon and rotate it to the next position. I love it because I can do the same with the ornaments as well. I know the perfect place for each, and it allows me to display as many as I want because the tree constantly moves to give me a view of all my treasures. My friends and family love to admire my rotating tree and all the ornaments because there is never a bad view. They can see everything, and it brings back memories for them as well.
Secret 7: Vary the Shape and Size of Ornaments
To bring the most interest to your tree it’s important to not have all the same size and shaped ornaments and décor. If every piece on the tree is the same, it gets boring. This is probably the more is more coming out in me but, if every ornament is the same color or theme, it’s not special. This time of year you can go into any store and find clear plastic tubes filled with 25 or 50 or 100 ornaments of similar size and shape. That’s a good place to start but don’t fill an entire tree with this combination because it will look flat. I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Designers don’t buy all their décor from the same place. We like to mix it up and curate because the result is so much more special than getting a “done for you” set. This is one of the 11 Secrets only Designers Know to Make Your Space Rock. If you’d like to learn the other 10 secrets, click the button below and go get it! You can absolutely apply each secret to holiday decorating as well as any other time of the year!
Secret 8: Incorporate Greens
Fresh cut or artificial greens add a wonderful opportunity to continue your color theme. Try incorporating a few ornaments or ribbons the same as your color theme. Classic and traditional Christmas décor doesn’t have to be focused solely around the tree. I love to add garlands and décor to the fireplace mantle, bookshelves, tables and other surfaces as well. You want to bring the look around to tie into the rest of the room. A little goes a long way and I will sometimes add ribbons to lamps or cover my plant containers with decorative paper or small greens with coordinating colors.
Secret 9: Suction Cups
I can’t live without these for lights in windows. These little suction cups work like magic. One of my first commercial holiday decorating jobs in Buffalo was decorating an office building downtown. The building had huge windows all across the front for an entire city block. They wanted white lights framing the windows. I found these suction cups at a local hardware store chain and I believe I bought every location’s full inventory of suction cups to make this installation happen. The result was spectacular, and the entire building was bathed in Christmas cheer. I stayed up all night for 3 nights working the week of Thanksgiving to pull it off. I still use these same suction cups to decorate the windows in my house and they never fail.
Secret 10: Timers are Essential
The absolute best part of this is you don’t want to have to remember to turn on all the lights inside and out. Years ago, I remember my mom having to turn the lights on the tree off and having to unplug all the lights in the windows every night. What a pain! These days, there are so many timer options that you can literally set it once and enjoy throughout the entire season. No more pulling plugs or flipping switches. I love these smart sockets because you can install them and control them from your phone and set a timer for when you want them to go on and off. What a treat!
Secret 11: Battery Operated Lights
These are a life saver for those tricky outside spaces with no electric. I have no power on one side of my house and I always want to add a bit of light out there for the holidays. I’ve run extension cords and had to move the cords to shovel or snow blow, what a pain! I found these amazing lights a few years ago. They are a sting of 100 warm white LED lights that run off of 3 AA batteries. I buy a bulk box of Energizer Max batteries and I may have to change the batteries out two times in a month! Worth it for saving the trouble of moving extension cords! The LED lights are a super low power draw. These lights have many functions, so they blink in any way you’d want them to or they stay steady too. The lights have a built-in timer so they light for 6 hours and they’re off the rest of the time. Perfect for peak hours between 6PM and midnight.
Secret 12: Wrap Empty Boxes in Beautiful Paper
This is a sneaky little secret. I wrap empty boxes as decorations, It’s a fantastic way to get a look for Christmas that lasts the entire season. I used to do this all the time for offices and stores that I decorated. I would wrap empty boxes in paper that matched my decorating theme. I’m a last-minute shopper, so this one has saved many a Christmas for me. I love the look of presents under the tree but wrapping them all up and putting them out the day before or even week before seems pointless. Not to mention the fact that the paper is ripped off and discarded in the blink of an eye… I love spending time on presentation, and this gives me the opportunity to put my creative efforts into a beautiful gift-wrapping job without having to watch it get torn to shreds. I still wrap my actual gifts but I’m okay with those getting ripped open. That’s also great fun!
Secret 13: Go Natural
One of my favorite ways to bring in some Christmas cheer is by growing paperwhites and amaryllis. This is a super fun and easy project you can do to add a bit of nature and whimsy to your space. These festive Christmas flowers add some color and beauty to the season and they make a wonderful little project for kids to participate in too. The kids can help place the bulbs in the container and watch them grow. The grow time is a few weeks to a month so now is the perfect time to start them so they’re ready for Christmas. All you need is some dollar store moss, clear glass container, the bulbs and a tiny bit of water and sunlight. They grow fast and watching the progress is a fun activity that lasts the whole Christmas season!
Conclusion:
That’s really it. 13 creative secrets to make your classic, traditional Christmas look amazing!
1.Start with a Color Theme
2. Ribbon Instead of Garland
3. Make Bows as Tree Toppers
4. Go Vintage
5. Get Personal
6. Rotating Tree Base
7. Vary the Shape and Size of Ornaments
8. Incorporate Greens
9. Suction Cups
10. Timers are Essential
11. Battery Operated Lights
12. Wrap Empty Boxes in Beautiful Paper
13. Go Natural
Getting a classic and traditional Christmas theme is all about embracing your history and honoring the decorating scheme that means something significant to you. Trends come and go and if you love minimal design or boho chic or Scandinavian, go for it. You can absolutely incorporate any of the suggestions outlined here to achieve and support whatever style direction you love.
Now it’s your turn, I’d love to hear what traditions or decorating techniques you like to use for Christmas. Just leave a comment below and tell me all about it!
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Michael is Principal designer and blogger at Michael Helwig Interiors in beautiful Buffalo, New York. Since 2011, he’s a space planning expert, offering online interior e-design services for folks living in small homes, or for those with awkward and tricky layouts. He’s a frequent expert contributor to many National media publications and news outlets on topics related to decorating, interior design, diy projects, and more. Michael happily shares his experience to help folks avoid expensive mistakes and decorating disappointments. You can follow him on Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook @interiorsmh.
