Decorating for Christmas in Our Haus
DREAM HAUS
‘Tis the Season for Holiday Decor!
Our tree is up and trimmed with decorations we’ve collected over the years… and a few new ornaments we picked up this year!
Our Haus is coming together slowly. With our full-time jobs, DIYs and general busy schedules, ticking things off our to-do list doesn’t always happen at a steady clip. Yet every day, a small detail comes together and makes it feel a little more like home.
And with holiday season on the horizon, there’s nothing quite as exciting to us than getting our tree decorated, our stockings hung, and our presents wrapped and under the tree. Naturally, before all the fun commences, Victoria takes some time to catalogue our existing bauble collection, test the lights and map out an inspiration board.
This year, we’re leaning into the traditional green and red! We’ve gravitated towards adding more burgundy accents throughout the Haus this year (and in Victoria’s closet). It’s a color we’ve loved since we chose it for our wedding palette and it continues to spark joy! If there’s anything worth elevating this holiday season, it’s joy.
That said, we love that decorating for the holidays is a reflection of your home, story and aesthetic. While for some it may be bold and glittery, modern and risqué, or traditional and nostalgic, in our Haus we like to keep it rather subdued but with hints of sparkle, a dash of coquette and a little personalized glam. It’s a little piece of magic that makes an appearance for such a short period of time, we do our best to maximize its air time — that’s why our holiday decorations are up leading into Thanksgiving!
Shopping for Holiday Decor
BUILDING A TIMELESS ORNAMENT COLLECTION: We’ve built this out slowly over time and we’ve taken advantage of many, many post-holiday sales to get the best deals on decor! That said, it’s so easy to get swept away by the quirky and bold baubles and decorations that comes out each year. But we’ve found that keeping a couple basic principles in mind helps us to mix and match our collection in a way that gives us a bit of playfulness without detracting too far from the overall mood and vibe of the rest of our Haus.
Color: Our ornament collection is rather neutral, grounded in browns, creams, golds and green. We’ll add pops of colors through lower investment pieces that allow more flexibility each year and are low commitment for investment and storage.
Texture: We play around with different textures as long as they fit within the color scheme. From faux fir to knits to velvety suede. If it can add dimension to our decor, there’s a high probability it’ll end up in our cart.
Material: We look for ornaments that will last a lifetime (and hopefully, beyond)! You’ll see a lot of wood and metal ornaments on our tree because we’re hopeful they are hardy enough to withstand year after year. This year, to balance out the heaviness of these elements, we added glass to serve as the delicate counterpart and add pops of elegance
Personalization: We love ornaments that we can personalize — like our little picture frames! Over the last few years, we’ve clipped photos directly to the tree’s branches. This year, we found frames we can update year over year to highlight our favorite family moments and milestones. Our glass ornaments can also be opened and filled with mementos and souvenirs from the year.
ADDING POPS OF COLOR EACH YEAR: Investing in pops of color annually can be pricy and take up a lot of storage space, especially if you’re unsure of the longevity of the color preference. That’s where bows come in and wrapping paper choices come in! They add depth, texture and cohesion to the overall styling of the tree and room decor to bring pops of the color around without the commitment. At the end of the season, it’s as simple as collecting the bows, tying a knot and setting them aside for future use.
FAMILY TRADITIONS: We have our childhood traditions that we keep alive, but we’re also excited to add in our own. From gift wrapping while watching holiday movies, drinking hot chocolate while we trim the tree to placing the star on the tip top, it’s important to us to keep these moments intimate so we can be present and truly enjoy everything the holiday season brings — and that’s spending time with our loved ones! So we look for items that will allow us to do that:
We make sure we have plenty of extra stockings, so any holiday guest can have a stocking hung over the fireplace.
We look for ways we can include memories we’ve shared with our loved ones on our tree, whether through photos or ornaments.
We plan crafts we can do with our loved ones — and we’ll add it to our decor collection!
Need help getting started? Here’s what we bought!
Are you ready to decorate for the holidays? If you do, let us know how it goes!
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This holiday season, we wish you and your family a splendid time decorating! And may your celebrations be warm and merry. Cheers to making your Haus more like home.
Until our next chapter!
xo, James & Victoria
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