Simple Ways to Decorate for Christmas
As many of you know, a couple of years ago we packed up our family of six and moved into an apartment. It was interesting figuring out how to put a 2400 square foot home into a 1200 square foot apartment, that’s for sure. One of the more challenging parts of this epic squeeze was decorating for Christmas — I couldn’t possibly use all the goodies in my three giant Christmas tubs. Many of my Christmas decorations were too big for our smaller space.
In addition to the space constraints, there was also the problem of my, well, lack of decorating ambition. I loved the idea of crafting up some new decorations, but actually getting my crafty on was another story. Instead of intending to be crafty and fill my apartment with homemade Christmas goodness but failing miserably, I opted to take the simple route. No glue gun, no floral wire, no fabric needed.
Here are three simple ways to decorate a small space for Christmas:
Use canning jars to decorate
Emily talked about this, and I am constantly amazed at all the ways you can decorate with a simple mason jar.
This one was easy peezy. I saw boxes of small colored bulb ornaments at Fred Meyer (near the mini-tree items) and thought they would be perfect displayed in a canning jar.
I love that there were glossy and matte bulbs in the same box to give the display extra interest. There were several colors to choose from.
I also picked up some cranberries in a bag in the Fred Meyer produce department and some 50% off candles in the home department.
I love how some fruit, a candle and a jar come together to make a beautiful table decoration.
I also poured some Epsom salt into smaller canning jars and put a candle on top — Epsom salt looks just like snow and it’s crazy cheap (you might just have some in your bathroom cabinet). In fact, you should search Pinterest to find all the wintery crafts that you can do with Epsom salt (I also just found this sweet craft).
Use stocking holders to hang stockings anywhere
I was fretting a bit trying to figure out how to hang our stockings without a fireplace mantle or without nailing seven holes in the wall (I’m not against messing with the walls, but I’d rather not pay part of our damage deposit on holes that served a purpose for only three weeks). The Halleluiah Chorus starting up when I found these simple stocking hangers.
They aren’t exactly the cheapest option available, but at 50% off, they were an investment I was willing to make (and probably cheaper than the damage deposit hit) and I didn’t have to put any creative energy into it (that all has been sapped by endless laundry and face washing). I hung the stockings from the breakfast bar, but these would also work on a window ledge. These will work for hanging stockings or other decorations at any place we live in the future.
Use tomato cages to make an outdoor tree
I’m sure most of you even casual gardeners have a few tomato cages sitting in your garage or garden shed. Pull them out and make a quick and inexpensive lighted Christmas tree. This is the perfect outdoor decoration for those of you with small personal outdoor spaces or if you can’t staple lights to the outside trim. These would also be a great addition to your front porch decorations.
I used tomato cages and some inexpensive white lights from Fred Meyer (I used white, but I think green would look nice and could be displayed past Christmas).
Start by flipping the cage over and pulling the unattached poles together to make a tree shape. I bound them together with the twist tie from my package of Christmas lights. I used my daughter’s ponytail holder for the other cage.
Start winding a strand of lights around the outside of the cage.
I didn’t attach the lights in any way — just wind it somewhat tight and they will stay.
When you get to the bottom, attach the string of lights to the cage so it doesn’t unravel on you. I used a bread bag tie-thingy.
If you’re moving to another cage to make multiple trees, just feed the strand through the middle of the cage and start wrapping again.
The best part of this decoration is that the mechanics of the tree lights will be unseen at night so you don’t have to fuss too much with the tree’s construction. I couldn’t manage to take a picture that does the final product justice. I wish I could invite you all over to see how cool the trees look, especially from the street.
Need some more holiday inspiration? Check out these two posts:
Or more simple decorating ideas?
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I love using candles and nick-knacks on the mantel. Lights are always nice. Love ornaments. 🙂
I love to decorate the mantel with lights and angel hair.
Our fresh tree we hunt down at a ucut
I like to decorate using things I picked up on clearance a couple of days after Christmas 🙂 I also love fresh Christmas trees.
We love to wrap the pictures on the walls with christmas paper, very frugal holiday art! We also spend some evenings in Dec. watching christmas specials and cutting out snowflakes from used holiday wrapping paper or any other festive type paper and hang them all through the house to make our own wintery, snowy wonderland. 🙂
I made the advent candles the focal point of my mantle this year – putting them across rather than bothering with a wreath. Love it!
I like to decorate “National Lampoon” style! If it’s makes us happy, we put it up.
We love to decorate using Christmas lights!
I love our little nativity 🙂 it reminds me to keep it about Christ 🙂
We love making gingerbread houses and the kids pick a color theme for the tree and use all of the decorations that are of the theme color. This year it is blue and white.
We have baby jesus which we hide until he makes it to the manger and lots of really old colored mason jars with candles although now I really need to go to fred meyers and get some cranberries to add for color :o)
I love putting lights everywhere and red candles on my dining table… and of course our christmas which is decorated in red and gold..
Last year was the first year we made our own wreath and we will never buy one again. Love it. I also love putting up our nativity set and the lights outside that are so welcoming when we come home in the dark.
Christmas lights……everywhere. I Loooooooooooooove lights!
I like mixing the old in with the new…. a few 50’s style treasures (from grandma or antique/thrift stores) mixed in with the modern gives it a sense of collectedness over time. Plus, all these new pinterest ideas…. oh boy!! We have the mason jar snowglobes slated for Christmas break. With Epsom salts, of course. 😉
My favorite way to decorate is the COVER my tree with ornaments…the more the merrier 🙂 I also LOVE wreathes and love making them. I have those same stocking hanger for our mantle and they are great, they don’t do damage and are pretty strong! I really love the Christmas season so the more decorations the better, I love snowman collections and santa collections. My favorite is the pillows my grandmother made that pasted away this year.
I love using Nutcrackers! I always associate Christmas with the ballet, so I make sure to put Nutcrackers all over my house.
I love putting out my Nativity scenes from around the world. We also have a tradition of having the kids decorate a wreath for their bedroom doors. It’s fun to see the different ways they choose to decorate each year, from princess and thomas to animals and snowmen. 🙂
Just a simple tree and nothing too crazy that the cats can knock over.
My favorite thing to craft lately for christmas has been wreaths, last year I made one from the green foam sheets of my daughter’s hand print…I exacto’d each one out. This year I have kept it simpler I used red feather boas and a wreath form and a cheetah print poinsettia I found to make our 2012 wreath…I love the idea of using epson salts for snow.Thanks for the suggestion
My new favorite this year is framed printables! I love song lyrics and subway art 🙂
I collect nativities and get a new one every year!
Our favorite way is the dy after Thanksgiving with the kids we use childhood ornaments on the tree and alot of hand me down docorations.
thrift store finds!
We love decorating with our nativity set.
my staircase!
We have 3 young kids so most of our decorations are kid made. One of our favorites is the classic green and red paper chain.
Making cinnamon ornaments.
We love decorating our home with handmade projects and tree trimmings from the kids. The outside has lights and a wreath ( also done by the kids).
The first thing I always do is hang a wreath on the door. It gets me in the spirit, and then I move on to the inside!
We love Disney so everything is decked out in Disney decor!
poinsettias 🙂
I love to decorate with snowmen and nativity sets. I even have a snowman nativity set. I love it!
My favorite way to decorate is going through all of the kids’ holiday projects over the years and displaying them around the house. Our tree has very little store bought ornaments on it anymore because with 4 kiddos now we have a ton of handmade ornaments to adorn it with! It’s fun to pull out things my now 13 year old did when she was in Kindergarten. =)
Putting lights around the windows adds so much Christmas feeling to any space!
My favorite way to decorate is to keep it simple. Just a tree, some candles and stockings. The lighted tomato cages are a great idea though!
My husband and I have all the ornaments we had as kids and every year we buy each other and our kids a new one..all have a story or a meaning as to why we chose it. It’s a great way to have a decorated tree with such great memories behind each ornament.
I let the little things go. Letting the kids arrange our window clings and put their ornaments and candy canes on the tree their way instead of micromanaging them really gives our home a feeling of family.
I love using garland and oversized bulb ornaments as ceiling decorations and along the walls. It makes the whole room festive and ties in nicely to our tree. Love to use clear twinkle lights everywhere also 🙂
I like to bring in greens from outside and combine them with colored glass ball ornaments.
My favorite Christmas decoration is the holly garland i put over the fireplace. It has been in my family for 30 years. It is not Christmas without it.
We love not only decorating the tree, but decorating gingerbread houses and cookies!
Putting candy cane lights on the fence and lights in mason jars in the windows.
I love putting out our variety of nativity scenes. Some that the kids can play with and others that are look only.
my favorite way to decorate is with my husband and son. We have so much greater feeling of accomplishment when we decorate together and isn’t the holidays about family anyways?
We go wild and decorate the entire house. I got my daughter her own Christmas tree for her bedroom this year and she got to decorate it herself (she’s only 2). It’s my favorite new decoration of 2012.
We love our tomato-cage tree that I made several years ago. We use green lights and it looks so pretty at night!
My favorite way to decorate is the tried and true handmade paper snowflakes taped to our windows! Its fun and easy and you never know what your cutting might yield.
Using traditional decorations and adding one new item every year.
I love using candles and holiday lights to create a warm cozy glow. Our overhead lights don’t get turned on for much of December. Also all those ornament wreaths on pinterest are intriguing to me I just might have to motivate myself to get crafty!
My favorite way to decorate for Christmas is to just let the kids put whatever they want on the tree. It’s always unique and has special meaning for each child.