Christmas – the season of Christ’s birth – is truly the most wonderful time of the year!
Most families who celebrate Christmas pass down cherished traditions as a way of creating special memories and staying connected to past generations. Kids of all ages look forward to their favorite holiday activities, treats and gift-giving rituals. We don’t want to miss a single moment of fun thinking about last minute guests, gifts and preparations. We want to stay fully present, enjoying our time with family and friends!
The best way to ensure that the holidays do not turn into a major stress fest is to start planning and preparing for the season early. Keep things as simple as possible. Don’t try to do everything yourself. Let your family be involved in the process of making the Christmas magic happen!
Inspiration Is Everywhere!
Are you celebrating your first Christmas in a new home? Are you looking for ways to update your Christmas decor? How exciting!
Christmas is the perfect season to express ourselves creatively. Look around – you’ll find an endless array of ideas and inspiration everywhere!
To get your creative juices flowing, think about how you want your Christmas home to look and feel. Do more contemporary Christmas décor make your heart sing or are you a traditionalist at heart? Are there any particular color schemes that appeal to you? Instagram, Pinterest and Google are great resources to discover what appeals to you.
Once you pick a theme, envision what you would like your home to look like, both inside and out. What small changes can you make and what decorations can you add that will help you create the look and feelings you want to evoke?
Be Creative!
Have you ever been tempted to splurge on Christmas decorations because they’re so pretty and sparkly? Have you then tried to justify your splurge by telling yourself that the holiday season only comes once a year? If so, then remember – January brings us a New Year and a fresh start. This year, reward yourself with the gift of financial freedom instead of maxed out credit cards!
One way to do this is to start the tradition of creating a few new Christmas decorations for your home each year! Explore your favorite DIY and craft blogs and identify a few fun projects like these delightful Candy Trees that the entire family can make. Not only will this lighten your budget, it will also create the type of quality family bonding time that you and your children will cherish for years to come!
You can also breathe new life into existing decorations and ornaments with a little paint or glitter here and there! Embellishments like shiny ribbons, leaves and berries, and twigs and branches can also be used to freshen up aging décor. If you weave similar elements throughout your old and new decorations, you’ll end up with a beautiful streamlined look, regardless of when and where your decorations came from!
Natural Is Beautiful
When it comes to artificial trees, natural green finishes are an increasingly popular choice, and with good reason! Green is a beautiful natural color that perfectly complements with browns, reds, golds and other metallic shades. Natural colors bring sophisticated style to any home.
Natural decorations can work in perfect harmony with either a synthetic Christmas tree or a natural one. If you choose an artificial tree, however, make sure you have ample space to store it during non-holiday season. If your storage space is extremely limited, a real tree may be a more practical solution for you!
If you choose a live tree, be sure to look for eco-friendly options that indicate a tree is planted every time a Christmas tree is purchased.
Whatever tree you end up with, be sure it’s the tree that makes you happy!
Build Your Décor Around Your Tree
Once you have selected your tree, set it up in your home and start planning the rest of your decorations around it. Whether you’re buying everything new, making everything from scratch, or doing a combination of these approaches, planning your tree is sure to get you in the holiday spirit!
Be sure to place a skirt around the base of your tree as well. Not only does a Christmas tree skirt cover up the tree trunk or the unsightly metal base, the skirt also adds festive charm to your home. You can pick up these Christmas tree skirts for reasonable prices or even make one of your own. If you’ve never added a skirt to your Christmas tree before, you will be surprised at the difference a simple touch like this adds to your tree.
No Time Like The Present
Before you get started, make sure you stock up on some practical supplies like staplers, tape, and wire to hold everything in place. Feel free to put your tree up and decorate it as early as you like – there are no hard and fast rules!
Once Thanksgiving ends, the Christmas season begins, so don’t wait – the earlier you start, the more time you will have to relax and experience the real reason for the season with your family!
When you plan and prepare your Christmas season early, you enjoy the holiday season a whole lot more!
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I so agree! I moved from chaos to calm quite a few years ago now and what a difference early planning….and fewer gifts…makes. When my child was little we did a few crafts, but also focused on the real meaning each and every day with stories and object lessons. It made the whole month memorable instead of just one day, and I wasn’t worn out 12.26.
Beautiful Janine – makes the season so much more meaningful! 🙂
I love the idea to be creative! Creativity is a great release to decrease stress.
Well said Deanna!
We almost never stress about Christmas, we enjoy it too much to stress about it.
That’s the spirit! 🙂
Thank you!
I love the atmosphere that a Christmas tree provides. We’ve always been very traditional and I find that I really like homespun everything! More and more, the contrast between the artificial and the lasting stands out to me. I like the meaning behind our traditional decorations.
I will have to say that my mom has always been the center of our Christmas. It really is her thing.
Looking forward to the holidays with good memories to make and remember.
Laurie
Ridge Haven Homestead
Great ideas for a stress-free Christmas. Thank you for sharing at #omhgww Pinned and tweeted if buttons are available. See you next week.
Thank you for this information and yes! I do have an idea of what I’m going for for my Christmas tree this year. I wanted to do some print out! and I seen that tree with printable and wanted to see what you had written on those note papers, but no link. bummer…
@tisonlyme143
I do tend to start nice and early with our Christmas prep so I’m not stressing out and saving everything until the end.
Love these ideas. I’m all for less stress.
Thank you for sharing this with Sweet Tea & Friends this month.
Thanks for sharing. Your decor and surroundings are so important in reducing stress at anythim.
I have missed putting up a Christmas tree the last couple of years. We are very limited on space so I have decorated more minimally than I used to. I still want to keep things simple and less stressful but I do plan to purchase a small tree this year. Thanks for all your tips for keeping stress under control.
This is definitely the way I am going this year. I want to concentrate more on my people Found this from FF Blog Hop.
Featured, my friend. Thanks for linking this up to the TFT party. We need it. ❤️
This is wonderful advice! It bothers me how some people “Christmas shame” each other by saying that Christmas can’t be started before Thanksgiving, and yet there can be SO MUCH to do. We really should do it whenever we want. Planning ahead is definitely the way to go! You can do Christmas shopping in July, purchase decor or themed items (like cards) on clearance in January, etc. It’s so smart to spread it out if you want to do it all. 🙂 Visiting from Dare to Share linkup.