I don’t know about you, but these days I don’t have time to pull out bins and bins of Christmas decorations.  Nor do I have the time to sort through them and figure out a theme.  I also don’t believe in running out to the store and spending a whole bunch of money purchasing new Christmas decor. My goal is always to use what I already have on hand.

So this leads to the question, with limited time and an unwillingness to invest significant sums of money – what do I do to decorate for Christmas?  This post will give you a quick summary of the approach I take and time I invest. It will also give you some tips on different techniques I use to make holiday decor more practical.

First off, we only have four places in our home that we change out seasonally.  The front hallway, the fireplace mantel, the dining room table and the bedroom. So, this makes it easy to know which areas to change out and to come up with a strategy.  If you know in advance where you need to decorate – it helps you identify how you will decorate.  It really saves so much time.

Second, whatever items or decor we put out has to be practical.  We have a dog and we lead busy lives.  Just like you!  So, we need to have items that are really low maintenance.  This is where my love of vintage and antique items is useful.  For example, if you put together a collection of vintage Christmas ornaments in a bowl – voila!  Instant Christmas decor in 5 minutes. Every year  I buy a few (less than 10) “new” vintage ornaments.  Then I reuse them year after year.  You can usually buy individual vintage ornaments for less than $5. Many are only $2 to $3 each.  You can often buy an entire box of vintage Shiny Brite ornaments for around $25.

Third, I add twinkle lights.  The new led wire lights are amazing, and they are only around $12.  The battery life is truly impressive. This year I used my lights from last Christmas, and the batteries are still working.   Most of these lights come with remotes to turn them on/off which is a complete game changer.  You can now put lights in areas where you don’t have access to an outlet, and you can turn them on and off from a distance.  I added twinkle lights to the US Mail greenery on the shelf in our entry way. They make any setting magical in the evening.

 

 

Fourth, a little red goes a long way.  Normally, I don’t embrace the color red.  It’s a color I use sparingly.  However, for Christmas I find that having a dash of red here and there definitely brings a sense of merriment and festivity to a room.  So, for our bedroom, I took out my favorite vintage Santa pillow.  With that, our room is now decorated for Christmas.  This took all of 30 seconds.

 

 

This year, I also brought out some new and vintage Mr. and Mrs. Claus mugs for our mug rack in the kitchen.  Again, this took less than 5 minutes.  The kitchen is now officially decorated for Christmas, and it wasn’t even on the list of places to decorate.  I love it when that happens.

 

 

 

Finally, you can’t go wrong with fresh greens.  This year I purchased some bunches of evergreens from Trader Joe’s  and put them in different vessels around the house.  Here is the secret to making the greens last longer so that pine needles don’t drop everywhere.  Submerge them in water in either a bathtub or a giant plastic tub and let them soak overnight.  This gives them the chance to soak up water and to stay hydrated for longer.  When I remove them from the water bath, I usually put them on a large bathroom towel to dry off.  Once they are dry, I cut them into bunches, and  I stash them in different vessels throughout the house. Examples include pitchers, stoneware bottles, mason jars, wooden crates, etc.

 

 

That is a quick summary of the approach I take and some of the strategies I use to decorate our home for Christmas.  Thank you for stopping by the blog today and for reading this.  It always makes me happy if I can share some useful information with you.  Happy Holiday Decorating!!