Christmas is a magical time of year for many of us, myself included. I love the sights, sounds, and most of all the life-changing meaning of the Christmas holiday. There’s nothing like it! To celebrate the Christmas season, we enjoy adorning our homes, inside and out, with beautiful, colorful and inspiring holiday decor.

So how do you achieve all of this? Running a little short of ideas and creativity? Let’s put a plan together that will work for you! It is separated into three very simple and easy to manage phases. The basics are for any type of decor and size of budget. As you read through the Christmas decorating ideas, take those that appeal to you (and your budget) and have fun transforming your home!

First, get organized. As you start thinking about your Christmas decorating ideas, remember that bright red and green aren’t the only choices for holiday colors. If you love those colors, that’s great. Use them and be happy.

Here is another way to approach your holiday decorating colors – look around your home and see what color palette you have already established, then use appropriate shades of red and or green, or gold, silver, blue, pink, teal, aqua, brown, etc. to keep a consistent color scheme. Your home will look it’s best and your holiday decorating will be a success.

If you are absolutely clueless about what to do with holiday colors, I would advise using a gold and white overall decorating theme. You really can’t go wrong.

Take out all of your existing holiday decorations BEFORE you do anything. Literally take them from their storage boxes and organize them into two main categories – the decorations you will be using this year, and those you are not going to use.

Once you’ve gotten to that point, put the ‘not using’ group back into storage and out of sight. Now you know what you’re working with.

Take the holiday decorations you are going to use this season and group them according to what they are. (Christmas tree decorations such as ornaments can be put into a separate group for now.) For example, I have a collection of Santas, so I unwrap them and put them together. I also have several different types of holiday greenery, so I group those as well, and so on.

Your next Christmas decorating idea is still for the ‘prepping’ stage, but it’s really critical to a beautiful holiday home. Take your existing non-holiday accessories…the nic-nacs, pictures, etc. that are typically a part of your home decor and put them away until the holidays are over. Remove the accessories from every room you plan to decorate. I literally take these items and put them in my Christmas storage boxes.

When you see beautifully decorated holiday homes in magazines, on home tours, online, etc. there is usually one thing they have in common. Each home has an element, one or maybe several, that repeats throughout the holiday decor. That is your next step – determine your holiday theme, or common element.

This common element could be a combination of a specific color + specific thing, such as birds, for example. Or it could be a certain style of greenery (usually faux) that has a type of berry, flower, frond, etc.

Whatever the common element is, you will see it on the Christmas tree, mantel, centerpiece, table top and so on. It it not always boldly stated, but the common element, or theme, is what unifies the holiday decor, pulls everything together and makes a beautifully inspired holiday statement.

Take a careful look at your current assortment of holiday decorations. Is there a common element already established? Here are some suggestions: white lights, gold bulbs, birds/nests, a particular flower, candles, grapevine, berries, wreathes, gift wrapped packages, trees and so on.

If you are undecided, look through some holiday home decorating magazines for Christmas decorating ideas. Your common element could be as simple as green Christmas tree branches/roping (real or faux) used throughout your home with white lights. By adding just a couple more pieces to it, you will have a beautiful holiday theme that is not expensive to implement!

Now for the fun part of holiday decorating! It’s time to place your seasonal decor and create your holiday home.