Five Things to Do Before You Start Decorating for Christmas

Old me started decorating by pulling out bins from the attic and taking them wherever they led me. (Clears throat) Scary right!? This is why our living rooms don’t look like the Target ad pictures! This is not how you begin decorating and where you start matters. Here are five things to do before you start decorating for Christmas.

1. Prepare for the Holiday Season

The first thing I want you to do is not going to sound fun—and that’s OK, because Christmas is a lot of fun, and this one step is not. You can do it, and then it’ll be over.

I want you to declutter and clean your home. Even if decluttering is temporary and you pull the skeletons further into the closet to shove in your décor, do it. With Christmas comes so much stuff—stockings, trees, decorations. Removing what your everyday decor and creating space for more decorations will create a home ready to be decorated.

Once your everyday décor is put up, you can start envisioning what you want for this holiday season. If you missed the fall reset we just completed, go check those out:

If you already completed the home reset we did this fall, then you already have step number one completed—congrats! If you have not completed the reset, you are not too late. Go check those out now.

2. Create a Plan

The Christmas décor of your Pinterest dreams is not going to happen on accident—you have to create it. This begins with a plan, and it’s not as hard as you think. Find some inspiration and challenge yourself to do something new.

This is how I create a decorating plan:

Identify focal walls. In every single room, there is a focal wall. A focal wall is the first wall you see when you enter a room. You also need to know what the second wall is that you see when you enter a room. This tells you how to arrange your furniture and where to put decorations to make the biggest impact.
Use Pinterest boards to find inspiration. I don’t want you to copy what someone else has done—this is for you to find inspiration and get ideas to add to your home. You can even look for décor that you already own and find new ways to use it or new rooms to put it in.
Think outside the box. When creating a plan, don’t assume you want to decorate the way you always have. You don’t have to put your Christmas tree in the same spot or the nativity scene on that same shelf just because it’s always been there. This Christmas, mix it up a little—you’ll be surprised at what you create!

3. Color Schemes (or Choose Your Colors)

I don’t know if you’ve heard of the 70/30/10 rule (or some people use other numbers), but you get the point. This rule means that 70% of your décor is neutral, 30% is an accent color, and 10% is another accent or moody color.

This is a simple way to create a capsule Christmas décor collection that ensures your decorations will always mix, match, and work together—creating a cohesive look in your home. Use the colors that you already have in your home today to help guide this decision, adding in a few fun Christmas colors as you go.

Pretty much—don’t decorate with the entire rainbow, OK?

4. Take Inventory

Christmas is expensive, and buying Christmas décor can be addicting and take all your money. I am giving you this advice, but really, I am also telling myself! It is SO important to take inventory. Shop what you have first!

Adding in fun, timeless pieces every year—so you can use them year after year—begins with thinking this way. Jot down what you know is in your attic bins or go through past photo albums to create an inventory of what you have so you can shop your collection first.

When you create a plan and shop your home, new ideas will come, and you can create a totally different experience and look using what you already have—just decorating with them in a new way.

By the way, you can also use a 80/20 rule for this. Use 80% of what you have and add in 20% for the color or theme of the year. I don’t buy on impulse and focus first on classic pieces that will be timeless. Then, I add in a few fun trendy finds.

5. Dream

We are not going to go on autopilot and do what we’ve always done just because we’ve always done it. Now, I’ll admit there is some nostalgia in putting things, like the Christmas tree, in the same place. But if you are ready for a little something different this year, use your focal point, create a plan, and put your Christmas tree somewhere unexpected and new.

I want you to dream and think outside the box—do things you’ve never done before! Last year, I took our nativity scene that always went on the table upstairs (and it was great there!) and put it on a high shelf in our dining room with Christmas lights around it. It was such a fun surprise, and everyone loved it.

If I had not thought outside the box and tried something new, I never would have found that great moment that now lives in our main dining room.

In closing

When we decorate in this order and prepare for the holidays—when we prepare before we decorate—we save both time and money. More than that, we create little moments throughout our home.

I do not have a huge budget to go buy lots of Christmas décor, but I can find the focal walls—the first walls I see when I enter a room—and create a moment in each space. This makes what I have go a long way, and it’s exactly what decorators do when they decorate for the holidays.

I hope these few things help you create a Christmas experience like no other—on a budget—this year. Make sure to check out the blog post on how to prepare for the holidays, and enjoy the process of decorating your home.

This is what God created us for. We are responsible to cultivate and create the environment in our homes. We create a home of love and peace—or chaos and strife. This power is in us, and it is up to us to create not only a beautiful home for our loved ones to make memories in, but also an environment of life and love.

Happy Holidays!

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