10 Steps to Stress-Free Holiday Decorating

Today, we’re sharing 10 steps to stress-free holiday decorating! November can be such a strange month, you know? On one hand, some of you are probably hosting Thanksgiving so your house is still decorated for Fall.

On the other hand, some of you might be traveling for Thanksgiving and want to start holiday decorating early so everything is done by the time you get back home. We totally get you, we feel the same way.

And then there’s probably a third category. Those of you that love Christmas SO much you start decorating as soon as the last trick or treater leaves the yard. I have an aunt that does this too. She gets super excited about Christmas around Labor Day ha ha.

It seems like she’s in good company though. Did anyone else feel like as soon as November 1^st hit the calendar, social media started blowing up with tons of Christmas and holiday ideas?

Not only that, I think you would probably be hard pressed to find a magazine that didn’t feature snowy travel scenes, delectable dinner ideas or trees dressed from top to bottom plastering almost every newsstand too.

I’m not sure which camp you’re in but I know it can sometimes feel overwhelming to decorate an entire house for Christmas especially given how bananas our schedules are right now.

I used to feel the pressure too until I came up with a simple system and it’s made a big difference.

Here’s a look at 10 easy steps to stress-free holiday decorating…

Step 1: Find Inspiration. Searching for Christmas inspiration can be as simple as finding a piece of fabric, a ribbon, a quote, a song lyric, a photograph, an ornament, or in nature with seasonal flowers or garlands you love and letting it guide the decisions you made for everything from decorations to wrapping paper.

Step 2: Keep a Consistent Color Palette. Choose a color palette that will enhance your home by working with the existing colors you already have in place. It will save you so much time.

Step 3: Bring any Christmas or holiday decorations you might already have down from the attic or up from the basement. This will help to stretch your holiday budget, so you can use that savings to buy a few new things you can’t imagine celebrating the holidays without.

Step 4: Set up a holding zone for your decorations as you bring them down from the attic. Place the contents in categories or by the rooms the decorations will go in.

This might seem like a lot of extra work, but it will save you time if you have multiple boxes of themed decorations to go through. It will also help to keep holiday clutter contained in one area.

Step 5: Decorate one room at a time. Most people start with the living room because that’s where Santa visits on Christmas morning. We usually start with the entry or the porch because those spaces set the tone for the rest of the house.

If you already have an idea, start with that space first. Then you can carry over that decorating confidence into the surrounding spaces and rock it like a decorating boss.

Step 6: After you have everything decorated the way you want, walk around to each room with a pad and pen or use the notes app on your phone to create a supplies list.

Step 7: Purchase seasonal and holiday décor items on sale. Most big box stores host early decorating events, crafting classes and offer coupons or discounts throughout the season.

Step 8: Once you get home from shopping for supplies, fill in the missing gaps or schedule time to create what you need.

This is especially necessary if you’re making ornaments, wreaths, gingerbread houses or sewing pillows.

Step 9: Fill your home with seasonal inspired scents by using candles or creating simmer pots with fruits, herbs and spices.

Step 10: Celebrate decorating your home with take out, your favorite holiday movie or ask Alexa to play your favorite Christmas music. You guys, decking the halls takes so much more than I think we even realize.

After you’ve finished sit back, slow down and enjoy the cozy home you’ve created for the Christmas season.

Keep in mind there is no right or wrong way to decorate for Christmas. If you want to get all themey-do it! If you want your house to look like a winter wonderland and you live in Miami-go for it. Do you! Decorate in a way that is going to make you and your family happy.

This season is about giving back, treasuring your family and friends, and creating a cozy home to make memories in.

If you want to take a minimalist approach because the consumer side of the holiday’s bums you out, give yourself permission to cut back this year.

If you love the holidays and want to go all out, do it up big and bold and exactly like you’ve envisioned.

It’s also just as cool to be somewhere in the middle. Where you feel like only decorating the tree, the mantel, the dining room and the front porch so you can spend more time baking cookies with the littles or visiting holiday house tours with your girlfriends.

Ultimately the decision is up to you, but I hope these 10 steps to stress-free holiday decorating have helped especially if you already feel more frazzled then festive this year.

Let us know if you have any tips to help manage holiday decorating stress, we would love to hear them. Until next time, I’ll see you on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest.

Many blessings,

CoCo