Choosing Your Home’s Holiday Theme

The art of decorating your home for the holidays is a strange one, when you think of it in terms of practicality and keeping the rest of your home’s theme intact. In fact, for the amount of work required to full deck out your house in the spirit of the holidays, I feel like it’s absurd. But that doesn’t mean I don’t understand the holiday atmosphere and decor fever like the best of them. Considering my mother used to put up 6 to 8 trees (and still does!) and have shipping supplies strewn about the house everywhere, I have grown extremely familiar with what works and what doesn’t. She’s enlisted my help so many times that I have a good feel for what looks great and what ends up as a flop.

Do I put these skills to the test every December, though? Unfortunately I don’t have the same drive to make my home festive, especially since I’ve never been one for the surface level things like home decorations and the likes.

Nonetheless, I’ve compiled a few tips for your decorating sessions this December, and if you’re on the fence about something risky or non-traditional, my advice is to go for it. No matter if you use basic shipping supplies or elaborate holiday decorations that are rare and expensive, it’s all about making your own decorations stand out while being bold and owning your theme. And that leads us into the first item today.

Picking and sticking to a theme.

The theme of the year is what ties everything in together. I don’t care if you choose a generic, overplayed theme like “rustic” or “chic”, you need to stick with what you pick and go from there. Some people like to get crazy and incorporate fantastical themes with overly dramatic nods to candy and gingerbread houses, but I think that’s brilliant if you can pull it off and have the resources to do so.

The best advice I can give, though, is to pick something that’s all encompassing and a wide enough theme that you can fit all of your decorations under. If you pick something niche and unique, you’ll be forced to stick to that theme with every little decoration you’ve got that isn’t a neutral color or material. You know, things like garland and other reds, greens, whites, and browns all go together no matter what you do. But if you side with a gingerbread theme, it won’t make much sense to also have a more modern or rustic item alongside your sweets themed home.