Three Spots, That’s All You Need to Decorate
If holiday decorating brings you genuine joy, no need to hold back this year. But if it tends to add stress rather than relieve it, here’s permission to scale way down: focus on just three spaces, and let the rest of the house off the hook entirely. Done well, these three still make the whole home feel festive.
Spot one: the tree
Pull it out, fluff it up if it’s artificial, and get to the ornaments. One way to make this a shared, lower-effort task: put on Christmas music and ask each kid to hang the number of ornaments matching their age. It naturally scales to attention span, a three-year-old manages three ornaments just fine, while an older kid can handle a dozen and often wants to keep going. There’s no requirement for magazine-worthy styling, a tree built entirely from a collection of sentimental, mismatched family ornaments counts as fully decorated.
Spot two: the mantle, or wherever stockings hang
Whatever spot serves that purpose, a mantle, a shelf near a wood stove, anywhere stockings have traditionally gone, get the stockings up. A simple strand of garland or a string of lights adds festive polish without much effort. Lights alone tend to make almost any space feel magical.
Spot three: the entry
This is the one guests actually see first, and it comes with a built-in bonus: getting something festive placed there, a small Christmas village, a snowman, whatever fits, often forces a quick declutter of the entry space in the process. When the front door opens, that one glimpse sets the tone for the whole house, even if nothing else got touched.
Your practical, actionable step
Pick these three spaces, tree, mantle or stocking spot, and entry, and consider the decorating done once they’re finished. Skip everything else this year if bandwidth is limited, and let Christmas music playing in the background do the rest of the emotional heavy lifting.
Until next time, continue to choose joy.
Don't miss the latest episode of the podcast!