Holiday Decor

Most fall wreaths that look off are either too small for the door or too orange and plastic. A good one comes down to three things: the right size, materials that look like they came from outside, and a plan for December, since Christmas comes only four weeks after Thanksgiving. Size Two-thirds of the door’s width. A standard 36-inch door takes a 24-inch wreath, like this 22 to 24-inch harvest wreath (on Amazon). A narrow 30-inch apartment door takes about 20. A wide 42-inch door can carry 28. Too small is the usual mistake: a 16-inch wreath on a 36-inch door looks swallowed. Measure your door before you go shopping and keep the number in your phone. ...

If you decorate for Halloween, most of it comes down on November 1 and the entry sits bare until Christmas. A harvest look instead, with pumpkins, dried leaves, wheat and warm wood, looks right all through October and November. Then for Thanksgiving week you just add a few things rather than starting over. The porch and door Pumpkins in a group. Three or five, in a loose triangle: one big, two medium, two small. Mix colors, a white one next to orange next to a blue-green heirloom. Odd numbers and different heights look like a harvest; even numbers look like a store display. ...

You don’t need a long farmhouse table and fourteen chairs. People remember the food, the company and whether they had somewhere comfortable to sit. Eight people around one table in a small apartment can feel more like a feast than a big formal dining room ever does. Here’s how to make it work, in five parts. 1. Choose the table Dinner happens wherever the biggest flat surface is. A 6-foot folding table (on Amazon). Seats six, or eight with one person at each end. Put a floor-length tablecloth over it and nobody will think about what’s underneath. The kitchen island. Stools on both sides seat four to six. Two tables pushed together. A desk or card table against the end of your regular table, with one long cloth over both, seats eight. Measure ahead of time. Each person needs about 24 inches along the edge of the table, and there needs to be about 36 inches behind the chairs so people can get up. A 6-foot table is 72 inches: three people per side, exactly. ...

Everyone takes a picture of the table before they sit down. Most of us set it in a hurry while the rolls are in the oven, though. A table that looks effortless is mostly a matter of layers: linen on linen, a low centerpiece, candles at the right height. None of it needs a florist. The base 1. Two layers of linen. A plain cloth in cream, oatmeal or soft grey, with a runner (on Amazon) in a different texture on top: burlap on linen, plaid wool on cotton. Too narrow a runner disappears under the centerpiece; too wide and it crowds the plates. ...

Everyone who comes over walks down the hallway at least twice, and it’s usually the one place nobody decorates. It’s narrow, so it can’t hold much on the floor, but the walls, the ceiling and the far end are all free. The floor A runner. A Christmas runner rug (on Amazon) covers the whole length of the hall, which makes it the biggest single change you can make here. Get one about two feet shorter than the hallway so a bit of floor shows at each end. Low pile is easier: doors swing over it, and pine needles vacuum off. ...

Someone is staying over for Thanksgiving, and the spare room is currently storage with a bed in it. Think of it less as decorating and more as setting up a good hotel room: a handful of things that need to work. Go through this list in order and it takes about an hour. The bed Clean sheets. Strip everything, including the mattress protector, and make it up fresh. Not the sheets that are “probably fine.” Wash the pillowcases on hot, and if the pillows are completely flat, replace them; a new pillow is about the cheapest hospitality upgrade there is. ...

In December the sideboard does a lot of work: extra plates, the dessert, the candles that didn’t fit on the table. Decorating it is mostly about planning for that, so there’s still room to set a dish down. A sideboard is low and long, so it needs some height. The wall above it does half the job. The base A garland along the top. A faux garland (on Amazon) the length of the sideboard, hanging 4 to 6 inches over each end. Everything else sits in it. Faux rather than fresh, because fresh garland drops needles into the food. Fluff every branch out before you start; a thin garland makes everything on it look thin. ...

Kids don’t really want to sit at the grown-up table. Give them their own space, some things to do with their hands and a reason to stay in their seats, and they’re usually happier there. On a kids’ table, the decorations and the entertainment can be the same thing. All of this takes about 20 minutes to set up, plus a little craft time the day before. The table 1. A kraft paper tablecloth. Cut a length from a roll of brown kraft paper (on Amazon) and tape it down. Put a cup of crayons (on Amazon) in the middle and write a prompt on the paper before anyone sits: “Draw your favorite Thanksgiving food.” It soaks up spills, and at the end of the night you roll it up and throw it away. One roll lasts several years. ...

Fall is the easiest season to decorate a porch. Pumpkins and mums are meant to be outside, so most of the work is arranging them with a bit of thought. And since Christmas lights go up only days after Thanksgiving, several of these ideas are about making the switch easy. Pumpkins Grouped at different heights. Three, five or seven pumpkins on the steps, beside the door, or on an upturned crate. Mix sizes from 6-inch minis to one big 16-inch pumpkin, and mix orange, white and green. Varying the heights is what makes it look arranged rather than dropped off. ...

A balcony is the part of your apartment the whole street can see. It’s also awkward to decorate: there’s usually no outdoor outlet, the lease has rules, the neighbors are close, and the wind gets everywhere. None of that rules it out. It just changes what you buy and how you hang it. Check the lease first Most leases are fine with temporary holiday decorations, but nearly all of them ban screws or nails into the outside of the building. Some limit how heavy balcony planters can be, a few restrict real greenery or blinking lights, and HOAs sometimes have rules about dates and colors. It takes five minutes to read the balcony section. ...