There’s something especially meaningful about decorating a house for your first holiday season there. It feels as exciting as spotting the first spring blooms at a new place — a small, surprising joy that makes a house feel lived-in. This year, our new home has a cozy, festive vibe, and I’m excited to share how we made it feel holiday-ready while keeping things simple and intentional.
This move meant a lot of downsizing and simplifying, so decorating became a practical exercise in choosing what to keep and where it would live in our smaller spaces. We even decided to donate our beloved wide Christmas tree after bringing it here and realizing it overwhelmed every room it could go in. Letting it go felt surprisingly easy, especially after we’d already pared down so much else.
For a while I considered a real tree, since it doesn’t need long-term storage — or so I thought. You still have a stand, lights, and ornaments to store. Local fresh trees also tended to be either too wide at the base or too short for our needs. Instead, I found a charming little potted tree for $20 at the garden center that now lives upstairs on a console table. It’s full of felt ornaments and lights, and once the season ends I can plant it outside.
We still wanted a fuller, full-sized tree, so we shopped for a narrow but realistic-looking faux tree. It was a Goldilocks quest — height, width, and realism all had to be balanced. We found a 6.5-foot tree that felt just right: tall enough to make a statement, narrow enough to fit the room, and with branches that look very realistic up close.
We placed the larger tree downstairs next to the fireplace. Although we originally expected it to go in the family room upstairs, the combination of the smaller tree upstairs and the larger one by the fireplace felt more balanced. The downstairs placement also lets the tree glow out into the neighborhood through a front-facing window, which is a lovely streetside effect.
The faux tree arrived in a faux-cement planter that we liked but found a little too formal for our room. To warm it up and add texture, we set the tree in a woven basket we already owned, which worked perfectly. The tree breaks down into three pieces that store easily under a bed, which is a huge win for a smaller household.
The best surprise: every single ornament that used to hang on our much larger tree fit on this slimmer one. I worried I’d have to drastically pare down our ornament collection — many are sentimental or handmade — but bringing all of them out and decorating the tree as a family felt magical. We moved just one large plastic bin of holiday items into a utility closet, and everything else came from what we already owned.
Upstairs, the small potted tree sits by the kids’ desks, which feels right because we used to place a similar tree in our last house’s bonus room. The kids love having their felt ornaments nearby while they do schoolwork, and we keep that tree lit throughout the day to make the learning zone feel cozy.
Every room got a little festive touch: feather trees, glass trees, wooden trees, and bottlebrush trees found places on shelves, tabletops, and even the bathroom window ledge. A simple evergreen branch in a gold cup and a candle add a quiet, elegant touch to the bathroom. In the kitchen, a collection of small trees brightens the open shelving, and a glowy glass tree on the entry table is visible from outside when lit at night.
We don’t have a mantel yet, so for now the kids’ stockings hang over the laundry nook door handles. I hope to add a mantel — even a simple makeshift one — before the holidays so the stockings can have a proper spot. Outside, our familiar rubber boots filled with faux evergreen branches continue their multi-house tradition on the front porch. They now live beside a lemon tree and occasionally attract tiny lizards, which adds to their charm.
I missed a wreath-making event I usually attend, so I ordered a wreath form and plan to make a magnolia-leaf wreath from branches around our yard. I’m oddly excited to try a DIY version — it could be beautiful or a hilarious learning experience, but either way it will be authentic and handmade.
Outside we also wrapped a small tree with leftover string lights for a warm glow at night. Between those lights and battery-operated candles placed in the windows, the house looks inviting from the street. Overall, decorating this first holiday in our new, smaller home felt like a gentle test of living with less — and a success. It’s festive, practical, and full of the ornaments and little traditions that make the season feel like ours.
P.S. I’ve also written about how we decorated our previous home for the holidays if you want to see past decorating ideas and traditions.