Decorating a Home for Christmas to Start a Family Tradition
When starting out as a family, you will want to establish traditions that will see Christmas becoming a favourite time of the year for you and your loved ones.
12/12/2021
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Growing up in the UK, Christmas was always big on the agenda as everyone went all out to hang crepe paper decorations, hang Christmas stockings over the fireplace and decorate the house with anything shiny and shimmering. When we moved to South Africa as a teenager, I realised that Christmas would never be the same and that we had to start new traditions, one that didn't involve building snowmen in the garden and putting Christmas socks in front of a warm fire. Let's be honest here, in South Africa, cold doesn't feature as part of the festivities, quite the opposite.
Setting a tradition for Christmas has to start somewhere, whether you start crafting your decorations as a family, making your own Christmas cards, or baking goodies over the festive season. Every tradition has a theme that sets the tone for celebrating Christmas every year. Having a tradition makes a lot of sense and helps keep your workload down if you host family and friends at your home. An established tradition means less work for you and plenty of enjoyment for everyone.
Given this, we look at some Christmas traditions that you can establish for you and your family, ones that will endure Christmas after Christmas until your children are grown and take these traditions with them to share with their own families.
When setting precedent for a Christmas tradition, keep in mind that this theme will apply for a long time and should, therefore, not be something trendy that might become dated after a couple of years.
Colourful Christmas Decorations
For those that celebrate Christmas, it is all about decorating the home and filling it with festive cheer and the scents and colours of Christmas. In days gone by, Christmas was all about red and green, the colours of holly berries and leaves, or Santa's jolly red suit. Nowadays, red, and green still feature but not as much and you can pretty much pick any colour you want.
Christmas colours for 2021 are all about bright and joyful in hues of fuchsia pink and bright turquoise but if you prefer a more muted approach to colours, you can always go with timeless classics such as white and silver, or darker colours paired with gold.
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Silver and gold will always be a favourite colour for decorating a home for Christmas and you won't ever have difficulty in sourcing matching decorations for the home.
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Establishing a colour theme for Christmas decorations means spending less every year to decorate the home. You don't have to choose a single colour but try to pick colours that work well together so that you can switch the main colour each year.
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Don't you just love these pretty bottlebrush Christmas tree decorations? You will find a selection of these on takealot.com.
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Countdown to Christmas
Advent calendars are something that not everyone adopts as a Christmas tradition, but they are a favourite with young children, especially ones that are filled with daily treats. An advent calendar is also a great way for young kids to countdown to Christmas and builds up the excitement of the occasion. Whether you do or you don't, you can make an affordable advent calendar and easily design one that can be used every year as a family tradition.
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A kiddie's all-time favourite, it is easy to make Christmas stockings with felt and a few embellishments.
Christmas Stockings
Hanging the Christmas stockings is a long-standing tradition for Christmas anywhere. I remember as a young girl waking on Christmas morning to finding my stocking at the end of the bed filled with fresh fruit, a mince pie and a few small goodies. Thinking about it now, I do believe my parents were very clever as they got to sleep in longer than usual. Christmas stockings are a great way to surprise the kids and keep them occupied for a bit while you get ready for the day ahead. Most definitely a tradition to keep in mind.
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Decorations for the Home
Whether you prefer to go over the top with festive decorations or keep it simple, decorating the home is just as much a tradition as a Christmas tree. But nowadays there is more than one way to decorate a Christmas tree and it is a wonderful way to get the whole family involved.
Let the kids make salt dough ornaments for the Christmas tree or for garlands to hang around the home.
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Salt dough decorations are inexpensive, and the kids can make all types of decorations for the home and the tree. Air-dry clay is another affordable alternative to making your own decorations. And lastly, one trend that has become even more popular in the last few years is to bake your decorations.
Gingerbread and sugar cookies are a special treat for the kids, and they can also be used to decorate the Christmas tree, the holiday dining table, or placed around the home.
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