Christmas decorating is something that you'll either love or you'll hate, there doesn't really seem to be much of a middle ground to it. People will take out the lights, tinsel, inflatable Santa's, etc from the previous year, and, in a lot of cases, they'll just want to put them right back into storage again. Hopefully, we can change all of that.
In this article, we're going to have a look at the top 10 Christmas decorating tips that might just get you looking forward to putting up yours this Christmas.
Christmas Decorating Tip 1: be yourself
This may seem like an odd tip, considering the others will be giving you some direction, but the number one tip is to just be yourself.
When choosing the decorations to use, or the places that you're going to put them, go with what you like, after all, unless it's on the outside of your house where the neighbors will see them more than you will, you're the one who's going to be living with them - so don't go with anything you couldn't live with for those few weeks over the Christmas holidays.
Christmas Decorating Tip 2: left in the dark
There are few things worse than having a long line of Christmas lights and discovering that one bulb is stopping all of the rest from working. There are two things you can do about this or three if you just chuck them out and buy some new lights.
The first thing is to do is to get a light tester. This handy little device will check all of the lights individually and tell you which one is causing the problems.
The second thing to do is to start replacing 'serial' strings of lights with 'parallel' strings of lights. No matter where they are in the row, all of the lights in a serial string will stop working if any of the bulbs blow. This means having to check each of them so as to fix the problem. When they're in parallel only the faulty bulb will stop working - making it much easier to fix.
Christmas Decorating Tip 3: showing the Angel within
To give you that additional feeling of peace and serenity you should include add some angels in with your other decorations. They will also link in with the true religious meaning of Christmas, and cost a lot less than buying a nativity scene.
Christmas Decorating Tip 4: having a fruity center
For many people the smell of fruit goes hand in hand with Christmas, so why not create a dining table centerpiece with oranges and other fruit; it's also handy to have if Christmas dinner is a little slow in getting to the table.
Christmas Decorating Tip 5: adding those personal touches
If you have visitors over for Christmas then a nice personal touch is to create place names for the table. It's easy enough to do and you can give it a bit of a party feel by writing the names using brightly colored pens.
Do you hang stockings out at Christmas? If you do then you can add a few personal touches to those, too. If you have a bit of time, as well as some sewing skills, you can create individual stockings and add things that the person you've made it for likes i.e. a boy's stocking could have a fabric train sown on to it.
Christmas Decorating Tip 6: mistletoe and other plant life
What Christmas decorations would be complete without mistletoe hung tactically around the house? To accompany that you could also think about decking your halls with holly, and prudently placing poinsettia.
Christmas Decorating Tip 7: wreaths
There's no reason why you can't have an artificial wreath that you use each year, but, if you have the time, and can locate a class, then creating your own wreath makes the decoration that little bit more special.
When hanging it you can either use a 'fixed' wreath hanger or, you could use one of the many magnetic wreath hangers that are on the market today. The magnetic hangers mean you don't have to attach a hook each year because they work through your door by attracting the hook part on the outside to a metal plate on the inside.
Christmas Decorating Tip 8: measure twice, buy once
You probably already have the perfect spot picked out for your Christmas tree, but do you know what the clearance is?
If you have an artificial tree then you may not have this problem, after all, you can quite easily leave a section out of them, but, if you're out buying a real tree then you need to know the maximum height and width it can be.
Again, chopping a bit off the top isn't difficult, but you may have paid a premium to get one as tall as you have, but if it's too wide then having to reshape it is going to cause you nightmares. Size does matter.
Christmas Decorating Tip 9: starting and keeping a tradition
It's nice to have family traditions at Christmas time, and one of those traditions could be getting the family involved in the decorating.
If you're particular about where everything should go, and probably already have a floor plan, then why not assign each member an area that they can be responsible for? If that doesn't sound like a good idea then why not have a certain amount of decorations that are created by members of the family each year?
Not only does making new decorations get the family involved; it also means that you have a fresh new look to some areas of the house each Christmas.
Christmas Decorating Tip 10: cheap and not so cheerful
Every year there's a nice new range of cheap decorations on the market, and that's fine if they don't have any moving parts or electronics, but if they do you should make sure that they have all of the required safety standards certificates.
If you have anything that isn't fully tested, and something happens to cause damage to your home then the chances are that the insurance companies aren't going to pay out anything on your claim. As bad as that maybe when it comes to the damage of property, it's even worse if it causes you any personal injuries.
