My Thoughts on Simple Christmas Decorations

Over the past couple years I have really pared down my Christmas decorations. I've been able to keep everything stored in one large Rubbermaid container ~ including all our tree ornaments and children's books. And as long as I practice the one in, one out rule, this amount of storage should continue to suffice.

I do have a few items that are used for more than one holiday, like my cradle to cross wreath, that I keep in another storage bin.

But this post is not about my storage bins. Rather, I wanted to share some of my favorite ways of decorating that don't necessarily require special Christmas decorations.

Candles

Who doesn't love candles? ~ especially this time of year when daylight is so scarce.

I call this candle below my "minimalist" candle because I can use it for any holiday, season or occasion. I simply change what is in the bottom part and it has a completely new look.

Lights

Like candles, lights are a favorite way of mine to add warmth and light to this season. We have lights on our tree, lights on our mantle, lights above our kitchen cupboard and lights in the girls room.

I love these colorful, origami lanterns my brother made me years ago. We tend to put up these lights in December and keep them up through the winter months.

Red towels and Napkins
Many years and a couple houses ago I wanted a red bathroom. I bought a couple sets of red towels to match and soon after we moved. I decided not to paint a bathroom in the new house red (because painting a room red is really hard to do well!) but I still had two sets of red towels. These towels have come in really handy around the holidays and very quickly add festive flair to our bathrooms. 

Recently I bought a couple red kitchen towels and a set of red cloth napkins. Although there were many cute Christmasy ones I could have chosen, I bought simple, plain red ones ~ that way they can be used anytime or at least through Valentine's Day.

Festive Kleenex Boxes
This year I splurged on the pretty, festive kleenex boxes. They add instant color and decor to even the most boring bathroom. We won't have any problem using these up and I won't have to store them the other 11 months of the year!

Old Photos
I love these photos of my girls when they were much younger. It's fun to get these out every year. I used to keep these photos in the frames behind whatever photo I was currently displaying, but now I don't display many photos so I keep these two frames in my holiday storage bin.

Nature
I used to have lots and lots of fake greenery and wreaths that I would pull out and decorate with, but now I trim my bushes if I need or want to add greenery to our home.

What simple ways do you like to decorate?