Christmas cottage décor simply means a way of decorating that’s not formal. It’s for people who live a more laid back lifestyle and prefer comfort over glamour. You don’t have to own a cottage to decorate your home in Christmas cottage décor. You can own a five thousand square foot home in the mountains and still make this décor work for you.

You can change slipcovers on your furniture to match the Christmas colors you choose Nothing fancy. Remember you’re going for a simple, lived in look. You can find many of the decorations you’d like to use right from nature.

Natural materials help the décor to keep a pared down feeling. Look outdoors for such items as pinecones and bring them indoors. Don’t paint them or anything, you want them as is. Place them in a rustic bowl and set them in the middle of your coffee table on in the middle of your dining room table.

Cottage décor isn’t the type of décor where you have to run out and spend a lot of money and it’s not the kind where you must have it all at once or something won’t look right. That’s the beauty of cottage décor.

You can add to it a little at a time as you go along. Use a mixture of items old and new. For example, take a small stack of old books, preferably white and stack them haphazardly on top of one another.

Don’t use any more than three or four and don’t choose thick books. Once you stack the books, take a few sprigs of mistletoe and tie the ends with a plain ribbon. Lay the mistletoe on top of the books.

Throughout your home, you can place white Christmas balls in bowls, in jars or lie them on an end table tucked among pale ribbons. You can also use vintage ornaments instead of white balls to create the cottage décor.

Set out linens from your grandmother’s or better yet, your great grandmother’s time. Place them on the end of the bed or drape them over the footboard. Take postcards from days gone by and put them in a frame. Hang them on the walls above a simple twig type Christmas tree adorned only with Christmas balls.

When you’re setting the table, don’t worry about putting out any fine china. Dig out your china that’s missing a place setting or two. If you don’t have any mismatched china, you can find some at thrift stores.

Put sprigs of holly and berries on the table as decoration but be careful if there are small kids around. They might stick the holly or berries into their mouth.  When decorating Christmas cottage style take your time and build the selection that you want. Your home will turn out to be quite a relaxing place to be.

One of my favorite things is seeing rooftop outdoor Christmas decorations in the neighborhood because it shows the homeowner went the extra mile to put a smile on the faces of kids and adults who revel in this wonderful holiday!

At our home, we have lots of Christmas rooftop decorations. We have the regular lights, of course, but then we also have a Santa that comes out of a fake chimney and then goes back in. I LOVE this one!

Many people put a Star of Bethlehem, a Snowflake, or a holiday sign on their rooftop to enhance the décor of their other outdoor decorations. I like the holographic rooftop outdoor decorations. Here are some of my favorite ways to spruce up a roof for Christmas:

I like to harp on the fact that Christmas isn’t just a commercial holiday. Jesus is the reason for the season, isn’t it? We need to drive that message home, and there are ways you can spread these ideas – such as through the use of yard decorations.

Many homeowners have some sort of nativity scene in their yard, but there are specific outdoor yard decorations that say, “Jesus is the reason for the season.” This type of signage or decor makes people remember, as they’re driving by, why we’re all celebrating and enjoying the holidays with our own families.

Here are some great “Jesus is the reason for the season” and nativity decorations for your home – my absolute FAVORITE is the one in the middle. Santa holding baby Jesus! Awwww:

This isn’t all, either. If you click on this link you’ll see a whole host of ornaments, tabletop decorations, and more that celebrate the birthday of baby Jesus. There are even some with LED lights – they’re beautiful!

My gosh! I walked out into my husband’s den yesterday and I thought, “Did he move the christmas tree?”  Nope – it was a Yankee Candle I was smelling, and it smelled better than our $200 live tree in the living room! The one that smelled JUST like a Christmas tree is shown below (the Mistletoe Yankee candle)

Here are my top picks for Christmas Candles that make your home smell deliciously festive during Christmas:

When it comes to the great outdoors, we like to mix and match our outdoor Christmas decoration themes.  We have an animated Santa on the rooftop, lights everywhere, candy canes lining the drive and sidewalk, animated reindeer and snowmen in the yard, inflatable decorations by the windows, and this year, we’re adding a nativity scene!

Whether you live in an apartment and only have a porch to decorate or have a half acre front yard to get creative with, you can find outdoor Christmas decorations that will suit any space. The only thing we ever have a problem with is finding enough extension cords to do the job! And you ave to try to match the grass (or snow) so it doesn’t detract from the outdoor Christmas theme’s beauty.

Here are some great ideas for outdoor Christmas decorations that I found. I love the inflatable decorations:

I’m torn between getting an artificial Christmas tree and a real one.  We usually have a real one as our main Christmas tree and smaller artificial Christmas trees for the additional ones we have placed throughout the house.

I can’t even decide between a flocked Christmas tree and a green one and each year, it becomes a squabble between us.  Flocked ones last longer, but they droop faster because of the weight of the flocking material. Artificial Christmas trees would last longest, but then you don’t get that Christmas tree smell.

One thing I do love are the unique artificial Christmas trees like the ones made of nothing but feathers, the soft pink colors and those that are pre-lit and you can place them in your yard or on the porch. I suppose there’s no right or wrong way to have a Christmas tree.

If you do invest in an artificial Christmas tree, make sure you have a storage bag or box to put it in so that it will stay in good shape throughout the years.  I remember the year after my parents got divorced, my dad wasn’t in too much of a celebratory mood. So my sister and I got down a 5 foot tall artificial Christmas tree my parents had that was missing branches and what were left were bent and extremely phony looking. This was in the 1970s, mind you.

My dad loved how we decorated it with paper ornaments we spent all day creating and he had tears in his eyes when he saw that we had wrapped household items to put under the tree (our wrapping paper was old newspapers).  It made him realize that life goes on and he eventually perked up and got in the Christmas spirit. I still love that little artificial Christmas tree for what it was able to do that year.

Here are some great deals on artificial Christmas trees you can get online:

…And let’s not forget about the roof! Christmas light displays are what make you smile.  There are all kinds of Christmas lights and yes, my family puts them all to good use.

We have a mix of Christmas light displays that are fun in nature, like the inflatable Santa with an inner light to the Reindeer and Snowman whose light-filled hineys move to the sound of music.  We also have a Santa popping up out of our roof whose fake chimney is lit up so you can see Old Saint Nick.

The Christmas light choices my husband’s made for the edge of our roof might be questioned by some. We like those large old-fashioned Christmas bulbs in multi-colors, so those line our home and garage.  But we also liked the trend of icicle lights and of course, being the Griswold’s that we are, we went with multi-colored ones.

We have Christmas light displays in the windows that reflect the real reason for the season, the birth of Jesus, and Christmas lights abound in the form of candles, strands, and more. The main problem we encounter each year is running out of extension cords.

One thing we love is the clicker we own to turn the outdoor Christmas light displays off from the inside of the house. That’s invaluable to me when I’m already in my cozy slippers and pajamas and can’t fathom having to walk outside in the freezing cold to unplug them!  You can also get timers to help you turn your Christmas lights on and off automatically so that you don’t forget. Here are some Christmas Light Recommendations from Tiffany:

I’ll confess – my mom thinks my family lacks a certain elegance when it comes to Christmas decoration in the home and yard. That’s okay – she loves me anyway. And I love visiting her home where the trimmings are awe-inspiring and could rival Martha Stewart any day, but for us – the gawdier the better!

My Christmas decoration plans begin from the inside-out. We start by getting out all of the staples we use each year, like wall hangings, door covers, stockings, and more. My husband goes around and puts multi-colored lights up on the ceiling all around the rooms, so we look like the inside of a local Tex-Mex restaurant. But I love the colorful glow.

The very second we feel we wouldn’t be ashamed to put outdoor Christmas decorations up, they’re up. Like right after Thanksgiving dinner, so be exact. We spare no time in filling our home (and our hearts) with Christmas spirit! I created a great Squidoo lens about Christmas decoration ideas, so I hope you’ll visit it and share your ideas, too! Here are some outdoor inflatable Christmas decorations that I love: