How will you be decorating this year?

[QueenOfIce]

I know I know it's August but I'm having a rotten time at the moment so please indulge me and tell me all about how you'll be decorating this year.

It's our 1st year in our new home and 2nd without mum, last year I worked to avoid anything Christmas, this year I'll be putting up the tree on mums birthday like she did every year, I might join my local NT and try wreath making.

Our new kitchen island is being put in mid November so I intend to bake ridiculous amounts, make mulled wine listen to every Christmas song possible and invite all my friends and family to pop in during the festive season.

I cannot wait for the 1st Christmas bits to come out in the shops. Didn't think I'd ever feel like this again since mum.

What are your plans?

I watched Christmas blogs on YouTube today because I needed to feel cosy.

We put our main decorations (tree and garlands) up for weekend before Christmas. However we will get the mistletoe, the kitchen bits and bobs and the music on from 01/12.
I will be collecting holly to make my own wreath as I went on a wreath course last year and feel a bit more confident this year. I’m hoping to extend those skills into making something for the dining room table and across the piano.

I am already longing for Christmas films, making fudge and drying oranges.

Sorry to hear about your mum.

Thanks IAm, how do you dry your oranges? I tried it once and they went mouldy I'd love to have dried oranges with cloves in a lovely glass vase.

We try so hard to make Christmas special for our children. Each weekend in December involves a family Christmas activity (this year we're going on a steam train ride, to the pantomime and to see a concert) and we usually decorate the second weekend in. We put up a real tree and garlands in our lounge, an old fake tree in our snug, and a fibre optic tree in the dining room. We usually make and decorate a gingerbread house too. Our daughter has a 'task' advent calendar so every day in December will involve a little job for her to complete e.g decorate pine cones, draw a Christmas picture, write out Christmas cards, bake a Christmas themed cake etc. X

how do you dry your oranges?

We dry them in the oven on the lowest heat for an entire day after pressing them between two bricks/a book, the day before.

I buy a new decoration or box of glass baubles (Costco) every year , there's always a couple get broken.

I tend to do the same decorating - tree decorations , bannister/up to the landing , lights in the kitchen

The table gets different covers on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day . I find something that inspires me and work round that .

@IAmInsignificunt would you mind sharing any Christmas blogger recommendations please?!

Placemarking because I just love Christmas. I don't know how we will decorate but I've ordered new flooring for the front room with the idea that it will nicer at Christmas so why wait

I would love to watch videos of Christmas decorators - has anyone got recommendations of bloggers?

This Christmas will be my daughters first (due date in less than 4 weeks!) so I intend to go slightly mad with it to be honest! I know she won’t remember, but I will :)

I am moving into my new house, fingers crossed, in a few weeks and am so excited about decorating. It is a bigger house so more space to decorate. We have vouchers to buy new plates/pots/pans etc but I am so tempted to just get new decs in!! DH would kill me though

I would also love the blog recommendations please.

We currently have a red and white themed tree, but I want to go back to traditional red and green!

Currently waiting to exchange contracts but I’m so excited because this will be our first Christmas in our forever home.

Ideally I would love to hark back to the Christmas of my childhood - different coloured lights, more than one set of Christmas lights. Mutli coloured ornaments (we always had a mix of old things and new. My mum had lots of things from her parents which were passed down from theirs etc). I’m excited.

Just moved to a new flat which is red and white, don't normally go for traditional colours but I guess this year we will (I live with a designer so I won't get carte Blanche).

It's also our first xmas together and will be our baby's first (due mid November). I think I'll use the time before the baby is born to sort xmas out because somehow I don't think I'll have time so I may be living in Christmas-land for a couple months.

Real tree is a must, always had one.
Need to look for little stocking ideas, we have a fireplace to hang them on.

Baby won't remember but we will and there will be a ton of photos.

In our house, we go for homemade mostly with some vintage stuff thrown in. I like the idea of it looking like a Shirley Hughes book. So we make paperchains and lanterns, dry out oranges, make wreaths and garlands, string up popcorn, make pompoms and so on. Other decs are mine from childhood, my Grandma's old glass baubles and lantern lights, things made by the DC over the years. I collect snowglobes and DH has bought one for me every year we've been together so they sit on the hearth. I swap out all the mugs for festive ones, the crockery for my Christmas Spode and Portmeirion, salt and pepper shakers, cushions on the sofa, jugs on the windowsill and so on.

I adore Christmas.

Shirley Hughes

We are actually away for Christmas this year but I can't not decorate. I'm of the more is more school of decorating and have a silent competition with my direct opposite neighbour. Although I don't do outside lights, and indefinitely would if DH didn't object so vociferously, last year for the first time I did wreaths on every window at the front of the house and was really pleased with the effect wondering which neighbour will copy this year. I love lights inside and hang fairy light curtains down the stairs from top to bottom to bottom of house. I use two sets of 500 light strands on the tree and have lights anywhere I can put them, shorter curtain lights across the French doors, those star paper lanterns in the windows, white paper present shaped lamps, light up silver birch trees, large mercury glass baulbles with lights inside from the ceiling, spare sets of fairy lights draped over art or shoved in vases and glass cloches. It's all about the fairy lights. A lot of my stuff is from IKEA and amazon. Cheap to make up for surge in electricity. Ooo can't wait.

We have a scandi theme with lots of red and white, which all goes up mid December. I buy a new light up house/building each year for my Christmas town - I got fake snow and a base board with little hills on to create the scene. It’s fab, but in order to keep the kids off it I had to get the playmobil Santa house for them (me!) to play with 😂

For the last 4 years we have had crises just before Christmas that took away from the time to decorate and generally felt like we weren't really having Christmas. I decided last Christmas that I would do things differently this year. While you can't anticipate a crisis I am anticipating how to decorate around it. I've been looking forward to this Christmas since last Christmas! I've kept two weeks clear for decorating and prep. Surely in that space of time there will actually be a free day!

@ShowOfHands

Thank you for the Shirley Hughes mention! I hadn't heard of her before, just spent a very happy few minutes on Amazon :)

We are in the tiniest house in the world whilst our house is being renovated this year so I'm really stumped about decorating. We usually have a big real tree, lots of heirloom tree decorations, garlands, lights outside etc but this year it's all in storage and there's just no room. I don't really even have room for a tree although I have to have one so will have to find some space.

I'm trying not to be bummed about it and look at it as an opportunity to do something different this year but it'll be challenging. Will be watching this thread for inspiration for small spaces!

Love all your ideas and so many of us in new houses this year! I finally have a very nice staircase so I'd like to put a garland up with some twinkly lights interspersed and dried oranges and cloves so when you walk in you get that cosy Christmas feel with the lovely smell.

My favourite Christmas smells are orange, cinnamon and cloves and fresh baked gingerbread. Only another 143 days to go!

We have redecorated so my traditional red and gold theme will only work in the sitting room this year. Therefore I am working on a red and white Scandi theme for the kitchen diner :)

I pat the orange slices dry with sheets of kitchen paper to take as much moisture as possible out and dry them very slowly. I make a new pomander studded with cloves every year and dry it out in a paper bag in the airing cupboard for about two months.

I put offcuts of pine along window ledges and the mantle piece with pinecones, cinnamon stick bundles and orange slices

I don’t think there’s such a thing as too many candles. I love to have a big cluster of pillar candles together in different sizes. I have an open fire so candlelight hides the inevitable grubbiness!

I think it could all be very tasteful and pinteresty if it wasn’t interspersed with a proud collection of children’s crafts!

I love christmas decorations. Have had a crap day after discovering dcat has died so comforting myself planning decorations for this year.

We have a real tree in the living room with a woodland animal theme and loads of baubles hanging from a stick in the living room window. I would quite like to add something around our large mirror but not sure what.

We have a twiggy tree in the dining room with steampunk decorations on. The piano is in here and has a couple of decorations on, but I'd like something more.

My main aspiration is to improve our outdoor decorations. We have a wreath for the front door and I hung some lights from the gutter last year but they made the house look like a pub, I would like to try for something nicer this year (maybe icicle lights from the gutter and an outdoor tree besides the door?)

Sorry about your cat Stompy

Aw Stompy so sorry about your cat, horrible day for you. Love the outdoor wreath idea! If I do the National Trust wreath making day I think I'll hang ours on the door.