The traditions of yesteryear included a freshly-cut Christmas tree and boughs of holly brought into the home a few days before Santa was to descend the chimney. Today, reproduction trees and greens are so life-like we are tempted to deck the halls with them soon after the last of the pumpkin pie has been devoured. But doing so leaves little opportunity to display and enjoy the bountiful fresh greenery of the season.

It’s easy to have the best of both worlds, though. You can decorate early with faux greens and incorporate fresh seasonal foliage into your Christmas collections for a cheery holiday look. Here’s how:

• During the first week of December, take a walk to your local park or bike path with a large basket or tote. Gather all the greenery you can find, bring it home to soak in a large bucket filled with water. Keep it in a cool spot (garage or basement) until you’re ready to use it.

  

• Tie small green bundles together with festive ribbon, and tuck them into your stockings hung by the chimney, add them to doorknobs, and use them as embellishments on all your Christmas décor throughout the home.

  

• Tie sprigs of aromatic pine branches into your faux wreaths and stairway greens near the front door. The breeze that comes in when the door is opened will fill your home with the fresh aroma of the Christmas. 
• Always use small branches so that when they need to be replenished you won’t have to redo the entire display.

A little bit of greenery goes a long way in making your home feel merry and bright for the holidays. For a warm and welcoming Christmas style, bring in the colors, textures and beauty of the season.

For more on Gay Van Beek, visit canterburycottagedesigns.com.

The holiday décor of this home in Williamsburg, Virginia, is a perfect balance of charming, cozy and elegant. It belongs to Jenni Holmes of the Dear Lillie Studio, her husband, Jonathan, and their two daughters Lillian and Lorelei. Her style shows that you don’t need a total makeover to create a little holiday magic. Use these tips to inspire you to make your home feel festive and nostalgic with an effortless flair.

1. Neutral

“My overall style is traditional with a little bit of a twist,” Jenni explains. To keep her look versatile from season to season and year to year, she sticks with a neutral and monochromatic color scheme. “Most rooms have a relatively neutral base with creams, grays, blacks, navy or chocolate brown, so I can easily mix things up seasonally. If I want to bring in different colors for Christmas, summer or fall, it’s easy to do that.”

Accessories with bronze, brass or gold trim details not only look on-trend, but they can also create a Christmas look in an instant when combined with gold ball ornaments and handmade wreaths.

2. Natural

A simple way to make any home feel merry and bright for the holidays? Just add greenery and natural branches and twigs, fresh or faux. “A lot of the time I’ll use clippings from outside. I’ll find branches and berries and just layer them in,” Jenni says.

For Jenni, this also means fresh roses, which are a tried and true way to add a romantic ambience. “Around the holidays you usually can’t get a lot of fresh flowers, but no matter what your holiday color scheme is, roses look pretty,” she says. “If you stick with one color and cluster them together, it makes a statement.”

3. Collected

Casual, but with an elevated personality, Jenni’s home feels warm and inviting through the use of sophisticated furnishings with comfortable textures, metal accessories and dark neutral colors. A mix of hand-me-down antiques and vintage-style furniture creates a collected and approachable ambiance.

Finding the right pieces is key to creating a livable look, whether it’s an heirloom mirror handed down from Jenni’s great-great-grandmother, vintage skis or sleds, or a new-but-made-to-look-antique dresser.

“We just like it to be a welcoming place so that when people walk in and it’s decorated [for Christmas], it makes you feel right at home,” Jenni says.

4. Crafty

Lastly, what’s a surefire way to personalize your home for the holidays? Jenni insists on adding homespun decorations for a family-friendly and sentimental touch. “There are so many ways to make it look and feel ‘holiday’; you don’t have to buy your decorations at the store,” Jenni says. “You could make gingerbread men and string them onto ornaments. You can string popcorn or cranberries on a garland—those are some of my favorite memories. You could just make a few things and make it feel special.”

People dream of creating a whimsical winter wonderland inside their home at Christmas time.  And year after year, Susan Daggett, owner of Kindred Vintage Co., dives into her holiday decorating right after Thanksgiving to create a charming scene that you would imagine belongs in a Christmas storybook.

Her 1926 vintage brick bungalow, which she and her husband completely renovated, gets decorated from head to toe in garlands and baubles, with several flocked Christmas trees placed throughout the house. “We decorate every little nook and cranny here when it comes to Christmas,” Susan says. “I try to make it as whimsical as possible.” Here’s how she does it.

Dreamy Décor

Putting a personal spin on her Christmas décor, Susan varies her color palette and theme every year, adding in textures and sweet details that give her farmhouse style a magical touch.

“I wanted to bring in pops of color that aren’t traditional Christmas colors—like hot pink and teal—and blend them with traditional Christmas décor,” Susan says. “I brought in flocked trees, furs, textures and pops of color that give it a different look. I love mixing vintage with new things.”

Her fireplace mantel couldn’t hold stockings using traditional hangers, so she came up with a better solution. “I found driftwood in the lake, and we ended up bolting that to the mantel to hang the stockings,” she says. Of course, she strung up an eclectic mix of faux-fur and cable-knit stockings and embellished them with a colorful felt garland and feathers for a quirky touch. Crystal chandeliers adorn each room for a little glamour. A wall of vintage mirrors in the dining room is an eye-catching focal point that people notice when they visit.

Just Add Magic

Floral wallpaper patterns cover many of the walls, and at Christmastime they take on a different personality, lending whimsy to the entire scene. In her two daughters’ playroom, for example, the woodland-themed wallpaper design feels right at home with the kid-friendly Christmas tree festooned with old-fashioned ball ornaments and a vintage toy car beside it. During the holidays, Susan says, “that tree is lit up the entire time.”

Family traditions are important to Susan’s family, as she and her husband wrap 25 books as gifts for their daughters each year, and they unwrap and read them together, one by one each night, as they count down to Christmas.

Making their home feel magical this time of year is something Susan hopes to instill in her daughters as she reflects on memories of her own mother putting her in charge of decorating various trees throughout her childhood home. “I think that’s something I got from my mom,” Susan says, “so it’s always stuck with me.”

Twinkling trees. Boxes full of pretty Christmas baubles. A house full of family, friends and laughter. Festive holiday music playing in the background, the magic and wonder of Christmas is all around.

Home for the holidays is about loved ones, memory making and enjoying every bit of magic the season offers. From shades of Christmas whites to all-natural crisp greens and farmhouse blues, inside this issue we are celebrating the holidays with friends. We share what the holidays look like in their homes, along with their traditions and favorite recipes—all with a sprinkling of holiday romance.

From the Romantic Homes family, we wish you and yours a blessed and magical Christmas season.

If you’re already starting to stress about the holidays, do away with an explosion of Christmas décor in your home and, instead, opt for a simpler and more relaxed look. Blogger Marian Parsons of Miss Mustard Seed skillfully exemplifies this concept in her former Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, home, which she filled with simple touches that infuse the home with the holiday spirit. “I don’t like to decorate for the holidays in a way that’s fussy or in your face,” says Marian. “I like to add hints of the season through fresh greenery and handmade touches.”

Dreaming of a Blue and White Christmas

You would think Marian, a highly admired paint enthusiast, has always possessed the skills to make her Christmas vision a reality, but like everyone else, she’s struggled with creating the right holiday look. “I’m a blue-and-white girl, and for a long time I felt like I didn’t have permission to stray from red and green for Christmas,” she says. “After several years, I started to see articles with surprising holiday palettes, and I finally felt the freedom to do something different.”

How Lovely Are Your Branches

Marian’s blue-and-white color palette remains prominent during Christmas, with natural accents used to bring a festive feel to the home’s year-round look. “I like to keep things simple and natural,” she says. “I love tucking fresh greenery into chandeliers and on top of tall pieces of furniture, as fresh greenery is always in style.”

Varieties of juniper, pine, fir, spruce, eucalyptus and bay leaves make up Marian’s greenery supply. “I like to use a mix,” she says. “I find as many varieties as I can, because some are feathery, some have needles; and they can have a yellow, blue or green tint.” She prefers live greenery over faux, as it provides a more authentic look, and it’s “so much prettier up close.”

She also includes trees in a few of her rooms, to accompany the loose garlands and branches. As her ceilings are high in the family room, she gets as big a tree as she can find and decorates it with felt garlands, jingle bells and any other ornaments she chooses. In the living room, however, she has a small fir tree that is decorated in felt-star garlands and small handmade grain-sack ornaments.

Handmade Holiday

Perhaps the sweetest parts of Marian’s home are the homemade touches that make her holiday look customized and personal. “I like pieces that are unique and that have a handmade feel to them,” she says.

Every year, Marian makes gingerbread cookies and houses, and scatters them around the house for something that looks and smells good. Some of her houses are displayed in cloches or on cake stands, and some of her cookies are hung as garlands. Marian also loves to decorate with wool pom-poms. Some of them are hung as garlands, and others are tied around lamps or made into wreaths. “It’s a reference to snow balls,” she says.

Having a handmade touch doesn’t mean you have to make all the décor yourself. Marian enlisted the help of her friend Ann Drake from the blog On Sutton Place to bring charming touches to her home, including her stocking Advent calendar and grain-sack star ornaments. “I sent her all my grain-sack fabric scraps, and she made 24 stockings for me that I tied onto a piece of twine,” says Marian. There’s never a better time to get creative with friends than during the holidays.

What could be more enchanting than a winter wonderland? As the days grow shorter and snowflakes fall in frosty gusts, many of us start dreaming of a white Christmas. Childhood reveries help make the holiday special. And for interior designer and blogger Breanne Doucette of Rooms for Rent, decorating her New England home every Christmas means awakening her children’s imaginations.

“I want to set the stage for my children, so they’ll love the holiday as much as I do,” she says. Breanne still remembers what it felt like to be a kid at Christmas, she says, describing the magic of the season and how decorated pine trees transformed her parents’ house into a winter fantasyland.

Today, Christmas magic and wild forests mix in her home, where pine trees covered in glittering icicles beckon tiny feet into dreams of forests full of snowflakes and shimmering silver.

To set the scene, Breanne places several pieces of décor at various eye levels, so her children, a six- and an eight-year-old, can enjoy dreams of “woodland glam” and “rustic elegance.” She hopes her children will be inspired to carry on similar Christmas traditions.

Rustic Shimmer

“I wanted the holiday feel without the traditional red and green,” Breanne says. “But everything I use stems from tradition.” She mixed vintage mercury glass and shiny metallics with soft furs, throwing in other natural elements like deer antlers and tree bark to highlight and play with texture.

Breanne wanted a special kind of Christmas elegance. Drawing inspiration from old Christmas movies in which everyone still dressed up for Christmas, she wanted her home to appeal to guests too. “When decorating, I’m always thinking about how I’ll entertain.”

Originally, Breanne’s style relied on white, and she added touches of gray and brown to round out the shade. But these all seemed to fall flat. To soften the setting, she infused her décor with elements of iceberg blue.

Blue velvet throw pillows add nuance to the living room’s pale white couch. The elegant blue hues polish the more rustic pieces, adding charm and sparkle to the otherwise rustic scene.

Wintery Elements

“Focus on the details,” she says, because balance is key. Too many natural elements can make a room too rustic. Breanne explains she will sometimes add pieces, leave the room and then return to gauge how everything fits together. “It’s a pieced together look,” she says, relying on focal points to capture guest attention. “Everything has a place, and it is all about figuring that out.”

The best decorations can last throughout the winter season. Fur throws are perfect for combatting the cold elements and also creating a comfy Christmas feel. They can stay in place well into January and beyond.

Flexible décor such as evergreen garlands, gleaming votives, and silver and gold candles are elegant and versatile. Best of all, packing up after Christmas is made so much simpler. “I don’t have to take away everything all at once.” Plus her children and guests can enjoy their Christmas dreams a little longer.

With dazzling arrays of lights and decorations, the Christmas tree is the statement piece of many a living room during the holidays. But for Kristen Whitby—blogger, stylist and interior designer behind Ella Claire Inspired—quite a few Christmas trees twinkle throughout her Idaho home.

They shimmer in her children’s playroom, the master bedroom and, of course, the family room. They even brighten the children’s bedrooms, where mini faux saplings glisten in anticipation of Santa’s arrival. Here’s how Kristen decorates her home with personal flair for the holidays.

Woodland Charm

Kristen’s trees offer an enchanted, woodland feel at Christmas, a look she has admired ever since she can remember. As a child, she used to visit homes illuminated with similar charms. And even though she selects faux trees for their longevity—she likes to keep her trees up somewhat beyond the new year—she prefers homey and classic elements.

“Faux trees can get too fancy sometimes, but natural elements help tone it down,” Kristen says. When first crafting her look, she was quick to juxtapose vintage mercury-glass ornaments with red berries. Kirsten says natural elements help harmonize the neutrals and whites of the family room.

“My trees evolved over the years. The red berries matched and coordinated well with my red pillows.” Tying the family room together, pops of red pepper the entire room, from the couches to the Christmas dinner display. “The feeling of Christmas is added with the color red,” she says.

Christmas Arrangements

Sprinklings of red berries also add texture to the space and charm to nearly every bough. “It’s like a giant flower arrangement,” Kristen says of her Christmas trees. Like bouquets, the trees change depending on the extra pieces added. “I like to balance the interest with different heights that change from year to year.” Even changing the ribbon can affect the feel of a tree. “Plus, it’s an inexpensive way to redecorate.”

A special tree full of children’s toys is the sweetest and most endearing in her collection. Guests always ask how she is able to keep her trees, especially this one, free from tiny hands. But Kristen insists that everyone should enjoy the festive cheer, especially her three children. “My daughter likes to decorate her own tree. Then, she’ll take it all down and redecorate it, adding new things just for fun,” she laughs.

Family Time

Kristen says everyone wanting a similar look should try to keep things simple. “I like using textures and different layers of white.” Having a neutral background, she says, is a great way to save on holiday splendor. Adding pops of color and switching things in and out can be done quite easily with her aesthetic.

Try to ready your home well in advance, she suggests. That way, you will have time to play around with texture and color. If you decorate your tree like you would arrange a bouquet of flowers, you will then have time to achieve the perfect Christmas arrangement, making sure the various heights are dynamic and balanced. “Use recipes and decorations that you love, but don’t overthink your holiday entertaining. Really try to enjoy the season with your friends and family.”