Decorating for Christmas is fun, but when you’re in a small, rented space, it can be difficult! Today, I’m sharing a mini Christmas home tour with you all, so you can see how we’ve decorated our small space! In an apartment, it’s important to use Christmas décor that’s easy to store, versatile, and doesn’t take up too much space. Here are a few guidelines I kept in mind while decorating for Christmas!
5 Easy, Apartment-Friendly Tips for Christmas Décor
Add Christmas Colors & Textures.
I love to add some Christmas-y colors and textures to our apartment during the holiday season! I’ve chosen to purchase mostly things that can be used more than just at Christmastime. My favorite colors to add for Christmas are whites, rich reds, and golds. We bought a few faux fur blankets this year because they’re soft and textured, and we love them! We got this one from Target and our other one from Homegoods. I’ve also incorporated wood textures throughout our home. We have mini wooden trees in our bedroom, a wood carved nativity, wood slices, and distressed wood picture frames.
Using versatile colors and textures means you can also use your decorations year-round, so you don’t have to waste precious storage space! White pillows can be used year round, and reds and furs work well all throughout the fall and winter. We try not to have too many decorations that are strictly for Christmas. A few simple, special things, like a nativity, ornaments, a wreath, mistletoe, and stockings will go a long way!
Use Plants.
I love using plants in decorating, especially this time of year! I don’t tend to decorate with a lot of green, so adding plants to my Christmas décor makes my color scheme much more Christmas-y! If your apartment complex allows real trees, be sure to get one, but if not, you can incorporate real plants in other ways. Adding holly clippings to vases, filling a basket with tree branches, or using several mini Christmas trees scattered throughout your home are all great ways to incorporate greenery.
We have a little Charlie Brown tree, but I saw some fire ants crawling around in the pot after we took it inside, so it’s currently decorated out on our balcony. Since our apartment complex doesn’t allow real trees, we bought a fake one. I’m not the biggest fan of fake trees, but a fake tree is better than none! After decorating our tree and putting some presents underneath it, it doesn’t look too bad! (We bought ours at Target for less than $15. It’s only a few pieces and stores small, so if you’re looking for a nice, budget-friendly, apartment-sized tree, I’d recommend it!)
Create Vignettes.
We don’t have too much “decorating space” in our current apartment (so sad, because our old apartment had a beautiful big mantel to decorate). Because of this, I try to create smaller vignettes as much as possible. We have some groups of decorations on our entryway bookshelf, on the dresser at the end of our bed, and on a coffee table. Vignettes are a great way to make use of smaller spaces. We found lots of great pieces for the vignettes at Target and Homegoods, including the beautiful nativity pictured above that’s carved from olive wood from Bethlehem!
I’ve been loving our table setup as well! I wanted a decoration that looked wintery but didn’t take up much space on the table, so we still have a lot of table space available for entertaining. I used a cake stand with a few decorations and a table runner, which makes the table look festive but not crowded or overdone!
Incorporate Traditional Décor.
Just because you have an apartment or smaller space doesn’t mean that you can’t use all the traditional Christmas décor. Try hanging Christmas lights out on a balcony or around a window so they can be seen from outside. You can also set up your tree in front of a window or balcony doors if you’d like – I always think that looks really nice from outside! We don’t have a bannister or a mantel to hang stockings on, so we hung ours on an over-the door coat hanger!
Finally, one of my favorite Christmas decorating tricks is to use your gifts to decorate. I buy and wrap everything really early so we can have the gifts out under the tree looking nice. I also try to wrap my gifts very cohesively. If you don’t have many gifts, wrap some pretend ones! (We may or may not have some empty boxes wrapped under our tree.)
LED Tree / Gold Reindeer / Free Print
Use Christmas-Inspired Artwork
Finally, Christmas-y artwork is a great way to decorate a smaller space. Most apartments have some unused wall space, and a lot of apartments tend to have drab or boring paint colors. Adding décor to your walls is a really easy way to make your apartment feel like a more finished, permanent space, so I think it’s a really important way to decorate.
Hang some wall decorations! Try hanging a fluffy white wall weaving (here are three DIYs: one, two, three), making mini embroidery hoop wreaths, or simply printing out a few Christmas-y prints and hanging them. I have a list of the best free Christmas prints here. After Christmas, I’ll just swap out the prints for other wintery or non-seasonal ones!
I hope these photos and tips gave you some Christmas décor inspiration! If you’ve shared a Christmas home tour on your blog, leave a link in the comments – I’d love to see!
