Planning holiday decor properly

The calendar, working backwards

The one date that governs everything is the first time you have people over. Work backwards from that, not from the holiday itself.

A palette that works with your house

The most common holiday decorating mistake is treating the season as an overlay unrelated to the room underneath. A house with a warm, muted palette does not suddenly become a bright red-and-green house for six weeks without looking like it is wearing a costume.

• Start from the room. Take the two or three colors already in the space and find the seasonal version of them — deep greens with brass in a warm traditional room, silver and glass in a cool contemporary one.
• Classic red and green works beautifully in a house whose palette can carry it. In a house of soft neutrals it fights.
• One metal, mostly. Gold, silver, copper or matte black — carried through the tree, the mantel and the table. Mixing all of them is what makes a scheme look accumulated.
• Texture over quantity. Velvet ribbon, real greenery, matte and mercury glass, natural elements. Texture reads as considered; volume reads as busy.
• Repeat two or three motifs across the house so the rooms relate. Repetition is what makes a scheme read as one idea.

Where to concentrate the effort

Decorating everything equally spreads the effect thin. Concentrate on the places with the most impact per hour:

1. The entry. Front door, porch and the first thing seen inside. Every visitor experiences it and it sets the register for everything else.
2. The main living space — the tree, the mantel, the surfaces people gather around.
3. The dining table, if you entertain. This is where guests spend the most time looking at one thing.
4. The staircase, if it is visible from the entry. High impact, and the one item genuinely worth having installed by someone with a ladder and a system.
5. Powder room and kitchen island — small gestures, disproportionate notice.

Everything beyond that list is optional. Bedrooms, hallways and secondary rooms give the least return for the effort of putting it up and taking it down again.

The tree: scale and proportion

• Leave 6 to 12 inches between the topper and the ceiling. A tree that grazes the ceiling looks cramped; one stopping two feet short looks apologetic.
• Width matters as much as height. Measure the floor space, including the stand, and check the swing of any nearby door.
• Lights first, and generously. A common professional benchmark is around 100 lights per foot of height — considerably more than most people use. Light the interior branches too, not just the surface, for depth.
• Layer in three passes: lights, then ribbon and picks worked deep into the branches, then ornaments — largest toward the interior and bottom, smallest toward the tips and top.
• Odd numbers and clusters. Ornaments in groups of three or five, distributed rather than evenly spaced, exactly as in the styling rules.
• Two trees can beat one. A formal tree in the living room and a family tree with the children's ornaments elsewhere resolves the argument that most households have every year.

Garlands, mantels and stairs

Mantels follow the same rules as any styling: vary height, build a triangle, leave breathing space. Anchor with greenery, add two or three heights of candle or object, and let the ends drape asymmetrically rather than stopping square.

Staircase garlands are the highest-effort, highest-reward item in a house. Practical notes: secure with floral wire or purpose-made ties rather than anything that marks the handrail; keep the drape consistent from post to post; and remember that the garland has to leave the handrail usable, which means keeping the underside clear.

Fresh versus faux: fresh greenery smells extraordinary and lasts perhaps two to three weeks indoors with misting. High-quality faux lasts for years and can be augmented with a little fresh material at the ends and in the middle — which is the arrangement most designers actually use.

Safety, briefly: keep greenery away from candle flames and firebox openings, do not run a garland where it can contact a working fireplace, and check that light strings are rated for the way you are using them.

Tablescapes for actual dinners

A tablescape that photographs beautifully and cannot be eaten at is a failure. Three constraints:

• Keep the centerline low — below about 12 inches — or tall and slender, so people can see one another across the table.
• Leave room for the food. Serving dishes need somewhere to land, and a fully dressed table has nowhere.
• Unscented candles at the table. Scent competes with the food; save the fragrance for the entry.

A runner of greenery with candles at varying heights, a few small clusters of ornaments or natural elements, and something individual at each place setting will outperform an elaborate centerpiece almost every time — and it can be pushed aside when the platters arrive.

Storage and takedown

The unglamorous half, and the reason decorating feels like a chore by the third year.

• Photograph everything before takedown — each mantel, the tree, the table. Next year the setup takes a third of the time.
• Store by location, not by type. A box labeled “entry” beats three boxes labeled “ribbon,” “greenery” and “ornaments.”
• Proper containers. Rigid ornament boxes with dividers, wreath and garland boxes, and something to wind light strings onto so they do not become a knot.
• Label the failures. Note what did not work while you remember it. Nobody remembers in November.
• Give it a home on the plan. Seasonal storage is one of the categories most often left out of a house's storage planning, and it is bulky.
• Avoid the attic in Texas if you can. Summer attic temperatures degrade candles, ribbon and adhesives. A conditioned closet or garage cabinet is far kinder.

Jan Revels

ASID Allied Professional Interior Designer · Chateau Concepts, Dallas

Jan has practiced interior design in Dallas since 1997 and founded Chateau Concepts in 2001. She holds a BFA in Interior Design from the University of North Texas. She designs and general-contracts residential and commercial projects across the Park Cities, Preston Hollow and North Dallas. Read her full profile →

Written and reviewed by Jan Revels before publication