Aside from the tree, how do you decorate your home at Christmas?

[WhatWouldLeoDo]

I always feel that our home is somewhat lacking in the festive decoration department. We have a tree, but I wondered what else people did to decorate their homes? We don't have a fireplace or a big hallway with a nice bannister (our stair handrail is fixed to the wall so can't wrap anything around it), there's not much in the way of ledges/shelves to sit anything on...

I did have some really nice stickers for the hallway mirror last year (sounds naff, but they were really nice I promise) but we'd bought them on holiday and they weren't re-usable.

Any ideas to up the festive factor?

I'd like to know what people do (photos if you can) in their kitchens!

We are tree plus other bits in the sitting room and sticky things on the internal front door.

we have decorations hanging from the ceiling in the hall. Its really narrow so along the walls we have home made stars (saltdough with cloves for smell added) hanging from silver ribbon. looks very nice if i do say so myself, and smells lush.

Front room has plain black blinds, so we pritt stick (it washes off) felt fabric snowflakes to the bottom part, and because I'm lame I also tack white ones to the red door curtain we have. Kitchen blackboard/notice board has holly drawn on it too, and we've loads of fairy lights about. Looking for something new for the bedrooms this year, but usually lights strung about.

I only leave out the bathroom because I have no ideas. I'm christmas nuts.

Ooh, thanks Mrs Twinks. How do you attach the ribbon - to the ceiling or the wall? Do you just use thumb tacks or is there a way to do it would marking the very plain and pale walls? I'm intrigued at the use of cloves in the saltdough - how much do you add in to your dough? I was planning to make some this weekend as it happens!

We could probably do with some lights about the place - I'll have a look for those.

Any other ideas?

using a tack to the join of the wall and ceiling. It doesnt show so much.

I used about a tablespoon of ground cloves to two cups of flour. Also adding a teaspoon of fine glitter gives them alittle sparkle, but it doesnt show obviously iykwim. I just use a cookie cutter for the shapes.

I have similar on my tree too, only studded with whole cloves.

Love the clove salt dough idea!

For your loo, can I suggest a scented candle on the tank/windowsill/other flat surface in a festive holder? Festive towels and soap dish?

We go in for trees in a big way in the biscuit household, one in front living room, one in conservatory, one in hall, one in each bedroom and a small one on loo windowsill , I might even squeeze a little one on the dresser in the kitchen. Then there will be a garland down the banister, holly stuck behind the pictures, plus baubles hung from the rollerblinds in the kitchen, and wreaths on all the downstairs doors, and dh insists on xmas doormats, and the oranges with cloves hung anywhere there is a gap for that xmas smell ... now adding saltdough with cloves to to-do list (shamelessly steals good idea!).

Tree in family room with ivy round tops of the walls (nails and wire to attach), greenery over fireplace and holly on top of pictures.

Hallway - garland round banister, stars and baubles hung on ribbon down the walls, fairylights on banister too.

Kitchen - garlands with light round top of kitchen cupboards, paperchains (made by dcs) across the ceiling. garland across beam over cooker. bells on cupboard doors. mistletoe hung over table. widow sills have greenery with candles and flowers and baubles. Huge homemade cotton wool snowman attched to back of door. Christmas oil cloth on table

Bathroom - battery powered lights round window. paper chains on ceiling. christmas towels out to use. tinsel wound round pull cord. pine cone wreath on outside of door.

bedrooms - fairy lights for all!

Outside - wreaths on doors and lights on gutters - even the hen house gets the tinsel treatment!

These Window Decorations from Lakeland are good, tasteful (well I like them) and reusable.

Thanks for all the ideas. I'm going to look for some holly at the garden centre tomorrow - we can definitely do that. I do have those window stickers orienteerer - I love them. We have them on our front window so they're a bit hidden by the tree but I think I'll get some extra ones this year for the kitchen. I've realised that I could hang some saltdough/cloves decs on ribbon in the hall from our light fitting so I'll do that this year.

Battery operated lights would be very useful too, so I'll have to search for more of those. I really wish we had a nice bannister and fireplace to decorate

We have a couple of strings of white star lights from Ikea that we string up in the window of the front room (looks nice form outside as well as in) and around the kitchen.

I have a mini tree in the kitchen - a really tiny artificial one from Next in a pot (looks very real) and I buy plants and fresh flowers int he week up to Christmas.
Also have plenty of Christmassy candles going, and I ransack the massive Holly bush in our back garden.

Other than that, its just a bit of misteltoe above the doors and paper chains made by the kids. I don't like those matchy-matchy decoration sets, and I refuse to spend a fortune on Christmas decs.

There are some beautiful decorations at www.coxandcox.co.uk/ and there are also 25% off voucher codes floating around. Good job I am moving and will not buy extra to pack or I would be having the lot!

I do salt dough decorations and also made cinammon stick bundles, clove pommanders (sp?) and dried orange slice decorations which were lovely and smelt gorgeous!

I love decorating my kitchen most of all :) It's a bit Nigella Christmas with fairy lights on open shelving with vintage cakestands piled high with sweets and satsumas etc. I fill vintage glass bowls with chocolate coins and quality street. It's all twinkley and jewel like :) I have a lovely red vase which I fill with red berry sticks and have tea lights dotted here and there.......gosh it's making me smile just thinking about it. We've been madly refitting our kitchen (having moved to a new house this year) just so I can decorate it for Xmas!
Else where we have the usual tree, wreath etc, lots of fairy lights and giant honeycomb baubles hanging from the hall ceiling. Beds have Christmas bedding and fairy lights - My husband thinks this is quite OTT! This year i have a pantry so the shelves will be lined with fairy lights and anything red brought to the front :)

Have very long shelf in kitchen with these on, and silver sprayed allium heads

Have lots of the giant white ones of these up in living area

Have a stainless steel bucket on island I fill with greenery from garden aand dangle tiny red baubles from the stems using cotton

Its the only time of year we have candles

i'm minimal with our decorations. just the tree, that's it.

I love to decorate, but it has to be stuff my 2yo won't demolish! We have a lot of DC-painted decorations, and some snowman baubles that SIL made. I've just bought fairy lights to put up outside this year too!

This year I'll be going all out:
small tree in the hall
cinnamon and orange bundles on the tree
Baubles in a large vase
Christmas candles around the place
bannister decorated
A small bauble hanging on every upstairs door handle
We have french doors through to the dining room and I shall be using ribbon to wrap these like a present (sounds rubbish but I saw a picture in a book and it looked fantastic)
Solar lights in tree outside
'NOEL' letters on the bookcase
small candy canes hanging in the kitchen window
holly poking out of the corners of picture frames
indoor wreath hung on the door from hallway to living room
Along with all the usual ornaments and things...

fullofgoodideas - I love your Nigella kitchen! I'd love to do the bowl of chocolates but we have three cats and had an 'incident' last year with an empty chocolate wrapper, a pile of vomit, and three cats sat next to it. Playing 'guess the poorly cat' isn't fun.

Not a lot. Tree in dining room (is a through living room - dining room so can be seen in both rooms). Wreath of baubles in quality street colours and matching tinsel garland over and on the mantlepiece.

Cosy red throws with stars from Dunhelm mill on the sofas.

Cards received strung on Christmas ribbon and hung from the picture rails.

Conservatory windows are covered in snowflake stickers, nice wooden advent calendar on window cill, homemade paper chains around mirrors/pictures, regular pictures taken down and replaced with festive photos, christmas cake tin always on the kitchen bench filled with mince pies, calendar replaced with 'count down to Christmas' chalkboard, pictures clipped onto ribbon with mini pegs all over the place, wreath on door, mistletoe on doorframe, wooden reindeer outside and lots of candles

I have a 6ft tree in sitting room,3ft tree in playroom and a small tree on hall table,lots of nice tinsel round pictures,mirrors etc...lots of stand alone santas(cuddly type you find in primark)and snowmen dotted around hall,fireplace and on a cabinet in kitchen...nativity set on a side table in sitting room,wreath on front door,plug in light up santas on hall and sitting room window,candle arch in bedroom window,stop here santa signs outside in plant pots,red bows tied on banister with garland and I blutacked red bows where I couldnt tie them around house,few bits of tinsel in bedrooms and phew!!think thats it..christmas mad me!!!

loving the ideas i can "borrow".my kids draw soething festive and we stick it in the windows with pritt then i write a poem bout sants and that goes in to.last year we had minimal light coming in though as we did 4 kids as elves on a snowy landscape with a snow gruffalolooked fab from the outside though!anyone know how to make dry orange slices?

I asked our local cafe how they had made their dried orange slices yesterday and they said 2 days on the plate warmer. Obv don't have that at home but was going to try all day on a v low oven - maybe 50 or 60 deg C.

Slice them a quarter of an inch thick and remove excess moisture wirh kitchen towel. Place on baking sheet with baking paper, making sure they aren't touching and put into oven on lowest setting on bottom shelf. Keep checking every half hour and turn when you check. They are done when they are pliable. Don't know if it is just my oven but mine seem to only take two hours!
Have fun!

I have some large twigs sprayed gold which I put in a glass vase in the kichen and hang little ceramic decorations from (I have a friend who makes the ceramic decorations and sends them instead of Xmas cards - have built up quite a collection over the years!).

Wreaths on front door and living room door. A pretty card holder with wooden hearts and pegs on a long length of cord. Some nice lanterns from Ikea, lots of other candles. Also get my local florist to plant up a weathered pewter-effect planter each year with candles, cones, cinammon sticks etc as a lovely table centre piece (could easily be done myself if I was more creative!).

I always decorate during the Nine Lessons service and then we have tea with my MIL. I really enjoy it. I put a red and a white tablecloth on our dining table, and a red throw on the sofa. I have a rather fabulous gold and purple bedspread a friend brought us from the UAE, and sometimes I put that on the bed.

I hang up a few metal lanterns downstairs and light them in the evening. In our bedroom I wind fairy lights in and out of the iron bedstead and they ting! against the metal and sound like Christmas to me.

I put holly and ivy on the walls and, if I find it, a sprig of mistletoe in the doorway. I bake gingerbread stars and hang them with ribbon on the tree. Fairy lights on the tree! Hee, sorry, apart from the tree, you did say.

Oh! And during advent: I have a big basket that sits where the tree goes up on Christmas Eve; it fills up steadily with wrapped presents (but I don't have children or obviously that would be unwise). There's an old pipe that runs up along the side of the kitchen door and I tuck cards in behind it when they come. Sometimes we have an advent calendar, sometimes I forget.

Er, that's it. My walls are green anyway and my cushions are white with bare branch patterns, and a couple I've made out of old christmas jumpers, so it all becomes quite seasonal just with the red and the tree.