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Latest Interiors offers useful advice on how to transform your home into a stylish Christmas grotto

Baubles, fairy lights, tinsel and mistletoe – the shops are full of Christmas lights and decorations. Will the spending cuts mean that we all mend and make do this year, or will royal engagement fever have us covering everything that moves with celebratory tinsel?

Christmas decorations are highly personal. For some of us, Christmas means lights, comedy antlers and glitter. Others prefer a knitted sock, a wooden nativity set and a satsuma. We’re not here to judge, but we do like to take a quick straw poll of seasonal trends. This week, Latest Interiors drops down a few chimneys to find out what the best dressed homes are wearing this holiday season.

Traditional Christmas
Home-made treats and decorations, paper chains, candles and mulled wine – this year, simplicity is a key trend. If you’ve got the time and the inclination, then you can do a lot of Christmas from scratch (and it doesn’t have to look too Blue Peter). Snowflake paper-chains (cut from long strips of paper), home-made fudge, knitted hats and socks – just like the Christmases that, actually, most of us under 45 never had (because we were too busy playing that new TV tennis game that was all the rage).

Need new tree decorations? Make a simple salt dough (flour, salt and water), cut out seasonal shapes – stars, leaves etc- and bake until hard, remembering to put a hole through the top first. When they’re done, paint them white and silver, add some ribbon and, well, actually they do look quite sweet. Dried flowers, fruits, seeds, or shells sprayed in white or silver with festive ribbon; vases of painted twigs hung with tiny lights or dried grasses; eucalyptus wreaths and garlands of ivy and dried hops all sit happily amongst the glitter and sparkle. Did you used to get a satsuma and a walnut in your Christmas stocking, or was it just us?

Glitter and shine
Of course, the alternative – anti-trend, if you will – to the simple home Christmas is sparkly, loud and illuminated. We love a bit of luxury. Beat the winter blues with some colour and shine, with out-sized metallic baubles, traditional tinsel, and glittery reindeer in shades of purple, gold and royal blue. In fact, there seem to be an awful lot of reindeer about – on baubles, jumpers, table pieces – the Christmas armadillo is clearly going to have to pin his hopes on being next year’s motif.

Lighten up
Which brings us, then, to the vexed issue of lights. Interior lights can be as simple or flashy as you like – only you need look at them, so choose whatever takes your fancy. Exterior Christmas lighting, however, is a little more controversial. Latest Homes would like to politely suggest a few points to guide the lighting novice:

• Use solar or eco-friendly lights if you can. We shudder to think of the carbon footprint that our more extrovert neighbours leave this time of year. Would it really hurt to turn the lights down a little?

• Avoid anything that moves (or gives the illusion of movement) – it is distracting for drivers (who are probably craning their necks to look anyway), and can disturb neighbours

• And speaking of which, do be mindful of others. You probably love the 12 foot high flashing Santa on your roof, but does Mrs Brown next door, whose room overlooks your lights, enjoy him quite as much? Hm. Possibly not.

Small, simple white lights are the absolute classic for trees inside and out, and will give years of service (easy to get replacement bulbs each year, too). Many homes opt for a less is more (or nothing at all) approach to exterior Christmas decoration – but not all.

Oh no. There are distinct geographical pockets of extravagant Christmas lights, and no matter what we might all say about them, it’s great fun to go past and see what people put up each year. And who knows – maybe Father Christmas appreciates the view, too.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 6th, 2010 at 5:00 pm and is filed under Interiors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.