How To Style Your Home for the Holidays in 2022
The few weeks before the end of one year and the beginning of the next are a special time for people from many different backgrounds to observe important holidays and practice cultural traditions. Whichever holidays you celebrate, it’s likely you’ll be spending time with family and friends.
When the holiday season arrives, you want your home to look festive and welcoming, and you may have many traditional decorations to unpack. As you consider how to style your home for the holidays in 2022, think about adding some new décor items to the mix.
Set the Tone With Outdoor Décor
Your guests should feel welcomed before they reach your doorbell. Set the tone for a holiday observance with outdoor décor that combines traditional colors of your celebration with artistic images that characterize the festivities to come. Use images that express your faith, depict favorite holiday foods, represent your pets, or symbolize the joy, love, and togetherness the holidays bring.
Add Lights Indoors
Perhaps you have one of those holiday houses on your block—the one that draws visitors from far away to gawk at the flashing, over-the-top display and speculate about the electric bill. If your style is a bit more subtle, you can use lights inside your home to add a festive touch.
If you have an electrical outlet on either side of your fireplace, or on the railing side of your staircase, you can add a string of winding indoor-outdoor lights. If no outlet is close enough to string lights without creating a tripping hazard, try battery-powered fairy lights to add a gentle glow and a little bit of holiday magic. These lights can wind along your mantle, around your stair rail spindles, or across the tops of framed artwork.
Change Up Door Décor
Wreaths are traditional and lovely, but they can also be unoriginal. Get creative with your door décor by adding a vertical swag of evergreen branches, a colorful initial, or a durable vinyl door hanging depicting a holiday scene. You can even use found objects, like umbrellas, watering cans, bike wheels, or picture frames, on your front door for a different and more individual touch.
Garlands that frame the front door make entering your home an event. You can add bows or braid ribbon through your garland to add color and patterns to the framing effect. Some folks go as far as decorating the door like a present, complete with wrapping paper, a wide ribbon, and a bow.
Create a Merry Porch
Once your door is done, don’t neglect the rest of your entryway. Your front porch can host a welcome mat, planters filled with colorful seasonal branches, or arrangements of pinecones and ornaments for a festive touch. If you have room for a rocker on your front porch, and it’s sheltered enough to withstand the winter elements, add a festive pillow with birds, snowy scenes, symbols of your faith, or images of berries and woodland animals to evoke this special time of year.
Add Surprises to Corners and Bookshelves
Along with the fairy lights brightening your living room, tuck a few surprises into various corners of your home. Place a bird figurine on a corner table or add ornaments in a bowl to a bookshelf. Spruce up picture frames with a bit of glitter or add bows to the front of your bookshelves for a little holiday style.
Make Floors Festive
The start of the holiday season is a great time to revisit the state of your floors. Winter weather requires absorbent or protective mats and a place for guests to safely park their slushy shoes and snowy boots.
Once guests have their shoes wiped off and stowed, consider creating guiding pathways to your living spaces with decorative vinyl floor mats. These not only protect your floors, but they’re also easy to clean and available in an abundant selection of colors and patterns. Your floors will come alive with the hues of the holiday season.
Abstract patterns, plaids, or stripes will spruce up your floors without alluding to any particular holiday tradition. This is helpful for celebrations that include guests from various backgrounds.
Use Metallics
While many homeowners love to use traditional reds and greens for the holidays, a few metallic elements add some gleam and glamour to your décor. When styling your home for the holidays in 2022, add some metallic highlights.
Use tableware that glows with gold and silver or switch out a wood-framed mirror or two for looking glasses framed in shiny metal. Tuck a few gold and silver balls in bowls filled with greenery and add a metallic chain or some tinsel to the tree.
Polish up that heirloom coffee pot, creamer pitcher, and sugar bowl. The holidays are a chance to bring out those silver serving dishes and gold napkin rings you never use the rest of the year. They’ll add a glow and a bit of history to your table.
Bring Out the Bells
Nothing announces the holidays like the ringing of bells. Indoors, however, you may prefer the gentle tinkling of decorative ceramic bells, suspended strategically from hooks in the ceiling that usually hold your summer hanging plants. Attaching metallic bells to your doorknobs adds a note of cheer when you open the door to admit guests and picks up on the trend of using metallics in your décor.
Go Neutral and Natural
For many families, the holidays emphasize peace and togetherness. You can dial back the frenzy of shopping and entertaining by choosing a neutral color scheme with just a few festive highlights.
Adding natural elements is always welcome and gives your home a cozy, relaxed feel. Fragrant evergreens, pinecones, and red twig branches arranged in tall vases on the floor can add just the right touch to make neutral décor holiday-ready. Throw pillows with holiday scenes or colors also add a pop of interest to an otherwise neutral décor.
Cluster Your Candles
Candlelit dinners are another peaceful way to celebrate holidays with family and friends. Emphasize the gentle glow of candle flames by clustering candles of different heights together on tables and mantlepieces.
As always, be very attentive to fire safety. Never put candles or other open flames near greenery, and use the season as a reminder to test your smoke detectors. The holidays are a great opportunity to bring out those ornate candlesticks you received as wedding presents or inherited from loved ones who have passed on.
