Christmas

Most village collections start with one little house (on Amazon) that was too charming not to buy. A few years later there’s a church, a bakery, three lampposts and a question of where it all goes. Places that work An entryway console. Usually the best spot: eye level, the first thing people see, and often 14 to 18 inches deep, which is enough for two rows. Tall buildings at the back, small cottages in front, a snow blanket (on Amazon) underneath. Leave an inch or two between houses so it looks like a town with streets rather than a pile. ...

Guests notice the bathroom more than you’d think. It’s the one room where they’re alone for a few minutes with nothing to do but look around. It’s also the cheapest room in the house to decorate: one set of towels, a tray and a candle gets you most of the way. The main thing to plan around is steam. Real greenery wilts, paper curls and candles don’t throw much scent in a humid room, so a few of these ideas are about choosing things that cope. ...

People tend to either love flocked trees or find them a bit much. They’re beautiful, they’re also messy, at least at first, and whether that trade is worth it depends on your home. What flocking is A sprayed-on coating, usually cellulose fibers and adhesive, sometimes with a little glitter, applied to an artificial tree to look like snow. It ranges from a light dusting on the tips to a heavy coat that hides nearly all the green. ...

Once the tree is up and decorated, the bottom of it is usually a metal stand and a tangle of cords. Something has to cover that, and there are two choices: a collar or a skirt. They do the same job in quite different ways. Tree collar A rigid ring, usually woven, metal or wood, that sits around the stand like a cuff. It gives the tree a neat, finished base and looks more modern. ...

Garland does a lot for the money. One good strand changes a mantel, a staircase or a doorway more than almost anything else you can buy. The two common mistakes are buying too little of it and buying faux garland so cheap it looks like plastic. Fresh or faux Fresh garland smells like Christmas, and nothing else really does. A cedar or fir garland on the mantel scents the room for two or three weeks. ...

Fabric covers more of a room than any decoration does. Change the pillow covers, a throw and the bedding, and the whole place feels different without a single ornament. It takes about half an hour, nothing goes on the walls, and in January it all swaps back into one tote. The half hour Pillow covers (10 minutes). Take the everyday covers off the sofa and bed pillows and put holiday ones (on Amazon) on. Buy covers rather than whole pillows: $8 to $15 each instead of $25 or more, and they store flat. Most sofa pillows take 18 by 18 inches, but measure yours first. ...

Red and green will always work. But if your decorations feel a bit random, choosing a color scheme usually helps more than buying more decorations. Three things in the right colors pull a room together better than a dozen ornaments that don’t match. For each palette below I’ve suggested three pieces to start with, and they’re spread across three places in the room: something up high (a garland, the tree), something at table height (candles, a tray), and something soft (a throw, a tree skirt). Three is enough to make the colors feel deliberate without redoing everything. ...

Most wreaths you see that look a bit off are simply the wrong size. An 18-inch wreath on a full-size front door looks lost in the middle of it, and a huge one on a narrow apartment door looks like it’s about to fall on someone. The fix is a quick measurement before you buy. The two-thirds rule Measure the width of your door and aim for a wreath about two-thirds of that. Half the width tends to look skimpy. Anything close to the full width crowds the frame and can catch when the door opens. ...

Minimalist Christmas doesn’t mean not decorating, and it doesn’t mean buying an expensive designer tree either. It means fewer things, each one good enough to stand on its own. With most color taken away, texture and light do the work. Greenery A tree in one color. All matte white, all champagne, or all green ornaments. The trick is mixing finishes within that one color, matte, satin and glass, so it has depth. It looks especially good on a slim tree. Skip the topper or use a plain star in the same tone. ...

A desk has to stay usable in December. Whatever you put on it should either sit somewhere you don’t work, like the top of the monitor or the shelf above, or take up less room than your coffee mug. Off the desk surface A slim garland along the top of the monitor. About 2 feet long and no more than 2 inches thick; a fat garland looks like the monitor is wearing a hat. Hold it with two small clips on the back edge of the monitor, not on the screen. You see it every time you look up, and so do people on your video calls. ...