Photo: My grandmother’s living room, decorated for Christmas.

If you’re not accustomed to celebrating Christmas or decorating your home for the Christmas holidays, you may wonder what kind of decorations people use in their homes at this time of year. Well, there are a LOT! Here is a list of some of the most common ones:

A Christmas tree is, of course, the most important! Christmas trees can be decorated with ornaments, strings of lights, and tinsel. Some people may also decorate their trees with dried fruit, such as strings of dried cranberries or dried orange slices. A star or angel usually sits atop the tree, and a skirt is placed around the bottom of the tree for the gifts to rest on. 

Many families have Christmas tree traditions, such as going to the same tree farm every year to cut their own tree or designating a specific person to put the star on top of the tree. In my family, my parents always get a real tree and decorate it with lights, but they don’t add any ornaments until I arrive. Then we put on some Christmas music and it’s my job to add all of the ornaments. In the past, we bought one new ornament every year, but now we have enough, so we’ve stopped buying new ones. 

In my own home, I have an artificial tree (because most apartment buildings do not allow real trees), which I decorate with lights, ornaments, and dried orange slices. I’m not a big fan of putting a star or angel on top of the tree, so I skip that tradition!

A wreath is another common decoration, especially on the front door of a home. Wreaths are typically made from grapevines and decorated with all manner of items, from pinecones and cedar branches to holly and bows!

Personally, I prefer natural materials, but this means that I have to repair or remake my wreath every year. This year it has cedar branches, pinecones, cinnamon sticks, and dried orange slices on it. I put holly on it last year, but holly is very pointy and painful to work with!   

Some families hang up some mistletoe, and the tradition is to kiss the person you love while standing under the mistletoe. We don’t do this in my family, but we used to hang mistletoe at the school where I worked. Sometimes a little Christmas romance would blossom, but other times it just created awkward situations!

Christmas cards can also be used as decorations! Rather than just reading them and then putting them away in a drawer, I like to stand them up around my home to enjoy seeing them throughout the month of December. My parents hang them up on a string on the wall or over the door. Unfortunately, because of the Canada Post strike this year, I wasn’t able to send or receive any cards.

A small decorative sled or sleigh is perhaps less common these days, but my grandmother always puts the red wooden sled that her brother made for her beside her fireplace at this time of year. You can see it in the picture above (with a big red bow and a little stuffed snowman sitting on it).

You can also see a stocking in the picture above. While my grandmother’s stocking is just decorative, many people fill stockings with small gifts. At my parents’ house, everyone has their own stocking (even the cats), and we often open the small gifts in our stockings on Christmas Eve. Many families have their own stocking traditions, and aside from snacks, I know that there will always be a lottery ticket in my stocking! Every year we hope to win a million bucks, but no luck yet haha! 

There are several more items that I’d like to mention, but I’ll get to those in Part 2 (coming soon!). Until then, take care and happy holidays!