Last Minute Home Christmas Decorating Tips

Are you behind in making your home festive for the holiday season that is already underway? Here are some tips to help take the guess work out of last minute holiday decorating.

Remember the focal point of Christmas decorating is always the tree. It should be in a spot that visitors to your home can see it easily.  Even better is if the tree can be seen by passersby on the street. One thing is the Christmas tree must near an outlet and out of the main traffic flow in the house. Keeping the tree out of the space people in the family walk in will lower the chances that it gets accidently knocked over.

Don’t forget to decorate windows.  You can hang glass prisms in the windows to catch the light. The prisms should be red, green, or metallic. You can also do a single electric candle in each window to give your house a Victorian look.  Don’t ever use real candles in out of the way places. Lighted candles can easily be knocked over by an excited child or pet and cause a fire.

If you put wrapped packages under the tree before Christmas Eve you might want to coordinate your wrapping paper with the rest of your holiday décor.  If you choose the same color theme for decorating that you do in wrapping paper and ribbon, then the presents themselves become part of your holiday décor.

To add a festive air and good smell in general to your house glue cinnamon sticks around your potted plants and secure the whole plant pot with some pretty ribbon. This will perk up your dull house plants and make your house smell traffic.  You can also spruce up curtains by using small wreaths or seasonal ribbons as tie backs. Don’t forget that they end of curtain rods are a place to hang ornaments you have no room for on the tree. When using a small wreath as a tie back attach the wreath with wire to a suction cup on the wall. It is unlikely to damage your paint this way.

If you bring your presents out under the tree Christmas morning consider using solid color paper to code each gift for each family member.  An example would be all grandmas’ presents are wrapped in red paper. This keeps the presents organized and solid colored paper does not detract from the overall Christmas theme of the house like busy print paper might. Having color coded gifts eliminates the need for gift tags.  If you are keeping track of who the gift is from simply write it on the bottom of the package where it will not detract from the color of the wrapping paper.

Use a foam tree if possible to put the ribbon and bows from packages that you opened already. The foam bow tree can be a decoration for the holidays until New Year’s Eve. The foam tree can be a great place to store ribbons and bows you plan to recycle for the rest of the year.

If you are using an artificial tree consider using real green garland with a pine scent in the front entry way. Your house will smell like the holiday forest but with no pine needles dropping in excess from the tree.  Burn oil or incense in holiday scents such as mint or pine to add to the overall Christmas ambiance of your home.