Here’s how to transition your holiday decor from Thanksgiving to
Christmas with just a few simple updates.
Make
a statement with mercury glass.
Add holiday shimmer to your home with a quick grouping of
mercury glass vases. Create a variety of vessels in different shapes and sizes,
then group them together for a quick and classy table display. A few sprigs of
greenery (with red berries, once Thanksgiving has passed!) provide delicate
color.
Craft
a fruity wreath.
Place this lush, harvest-themed wreath on your mantel for a
fresh-and-fruity take on holiday decor. To form the leafy wreath, we bunched
lemon leaves and secured them around a wreath frame with floral wire. A little
hot glue joins faux pears, oranges and nuts together, and a quick wrap in floral wire binds
the fruity grouping to the wreath. You can use real fruit, if preferred, but we recommend faux
fruit for long-lasting cheer.
Make
your mantel glow.
Sometimes the best holiday light displays are indoors. To
make your mantel merry and gorgeously bright, just spray-paint a faux leaf
garland in light-reflecting shades of silver and gold. Glimmering metallic
votives team up with an oversized mirror to magnify the sheen. Round out your
transitional mantel with a couple of evergreen boughs (easily scrounged from
yard clippings!) for color, balance and a nod to the season.
Pile
on the apples.
Make a modern cornucopia by piling Granny Smith apples,
pinecones and greenery in a vintage suitcase. Double the visual impact by using
the open suitcase top as a frame for your favorite winter photograph; just use
double-sided tape to secure the image in place.
Pick
a pretty palette.
Need a color scheme for your mantel that’s impressively festive but not too Christmassy? You can’t go wrong with gold and green.
String bold, shiny magnolia branches with green floral wire to create a lush
garland, then layer in eye-catching accessories like gold birds, starbursts and
towering paperwhites in metallic containers.
Take
a forest stroll ... indoors!
Craving the lushness of evergreen foliage, but not quite
ready to put up your Christmas tree? Put it on a plate! To get the look, print
images of pinecones and evergreen boughs onto decal paper, then spray the
printouts with acrylic clear-coat spray. After the paper dries, cut around the
edges of each image and place the decals in a shallow, water-filled dish. When
the decals begin to curl away from the paper backing (after 2 to 3 minutes),
remove each decal from the water and slide the image off, placing it face up on
a plate. Smooth the image onto the plate with a wet paper towel, removing any
bubbles by gently pressing. Allow the images to dry completely before
displaying.
Display
new and old photographs.
Thanksgiving and Christmas are traditionally times of
gathering for family and friends, so when better to display a collection of
photographs that may be hiding on your phone or your computer’s hard drive? Label the ever-changing
groupings in this low-cost display—made with clothespins and twine—with metal scrapbooking label
corners, and mount the photos onto pieces of card stock using photo corners.
Dress
up inexpensive ornaments.
Paint and glitter can be fantastic helpers to create
miniature focal points around your house. For example, classic gray paint and a
dusting of glitter add contrast and sparkle to ordinary decorations. Wrap a
tiny box in neutral paper and add pinecones and greenery for color.
Maintain
your existing decor.
Ensure your decorating feels at home from holiday to
holiday by enhancing everyday spots with cheery details. For example, here bits
of greenery both on the table and hung as a wreath offer a subtle nod to the
time of year. A chain of jingle bells adds sound effect to the decor.
Focus
on neutrals.
Colors that are festive without being exclusive to one
season are a great way to ensure your decorating accents remain transitional
from month to month. For example, cheery silver and gold orbs add welcome
textural contrast to end-of-season landscape items, such as pinecones,
displayed under glass cloches.
Bring
the outdoors in.
Transitional pieces that work year-round take center stage
at holiday time when paired with in-season items. Evergreens offer a rich
counterpoint to these glossy white containers, one accented with chalkboard
paint. Berry picks covering the soil lend a welcome pop of color. When the
holidays are over and the weather warms, plant the evergreens in your yard or
in a larger container outside.
Play
up natural holiday elements.
Tuck a small vase inside a larger glass urn and fill the
space between the two with mixed nuts. Fill the small vase with water and add
fresh flowers or greenery.
Use
greenery for color.
Strategically placed greenery adds warmth and welcome
texture to nearly any spot in the home from Thanksgiving through Christmas.
Draw the eye up by draping greenery over a cabinet, or keep the focus on a
tablescape or sideboard with a similar garland.
Mismatch
glass pieces for your mantel.
To make your mantel holiday-ready in minutes, pair a few red-hue glasses, votives, vases and champagne flutes together and fill with mini white candles. Tuck a few real or faux berries around the containers for a lovely interior accent that will please no matter the season.
Find
new ways to display holiday greetings.
Displaying holiday cards is a beloved tradition. Here, a
collection is paired with an evergreen garland to decorate an inside doorway
that leads from the living room to the kitchen. Add a few small holiday balls or ribbon for
additional color.
Focus
on flexibility.
To get the most use from your indoor holiday decorating
accents, choose materials and ideas that can transition from day to night or
from quiet family evenings to larger festive gatherings. These mini trees,
wrapped in plain kraft paper and adorned with a single felt star, work just as
well on their own as they do when adding holiday cheer to a nighttime dessert
party. Footed ceramic platters hold bite-size appetizers and sweets that can
change with the occasion.
Enhance
your staircase with twigs.
Tie bundles of bare tree and winterberry branches to the
spindles on your staircase for an autumnal look. After Thanksgiving, tie pine
boughs to the branches with pretty velvet ribbon, and wire Christmas ornaments around the velvet ribbon
for extra color.
Use
mini evergreens.
Planted inside transferware bowls, a series of baby Norfolk
Island pines brighten up a mantel. This idea also works for shelves, bookcases or tabletops. Choose bowls
in complementary colors or plain white, whichever best suits your existing
holiday decor color scheme. Cover the dirt with nuts and acorns or with a
collection of mini ornaments.
Hang
baubles from headboards.
Tie holiday balls in complementary colors on lengths of
ribbon, and hang them from a headboard or in window frames. Opt for plastic
ornaments to avoid late-night collisions.
Mix
fruit, greenery and pinecones.
For decorations that smoothly transition from Thanksgiving
to Christmas, start with neutral basics. A beveled-edge mirror topped with
simple white candles creates a classic foundation. For Thanksgiving, add a
simple fall garland and mini pumpkins. When Christmas draws near, replace
harvest elements with pine boughs, clementines and pinecones.
Use
nature in seasonal ways.
Oversize ironstone containers are perfect for this clever
stair-step arrangement, which can sit either inside your home or on your front porch. Plant any
dwarf or sapling evergreen in the containers (we used a trio of lacy Goldcrest cypress trees). Print your
message on white scrapbook paper, then cut out circles and glue the letters to
a colored-paper backing. Tie the letters to the containers with a thin piece of
contrasting ribbon and add lengths of wider satin ribbon for accents.
Think
outside the holiday box.
Take a second look at how you display houseplants, foliage and flowers to create
breathtaking indoor holiday focal points. Here, a spray of green cymbidium
orchids fills an urn, while the single blooms from another spray float in glass
teardrops (available at online home decor retailers or florist’s shops) that hang from
sculptural branches. Smaller vases hold blooms that complement the orchid’s color scheme.
Combine
greenery and ornaments.
Trays filled with ornaments make a great holiday centerpiece. For warmth, temper the shine with small sprigs of greenery and miniature pinecones tucked between the ornaments or even inside small vases. Keep the vibe casual with a smattering of larger pinecones placed around or underneath the container.