Fresh Ideas for Coordinating Your Tree and Home Decor

When I was growing up, the colours of Christmas were firmly red and green. Those days are long gone! While red and green are still cherished parts of our Christmas colour palette, we now have holiday ornaments and decor in every colour of the rainbow—even artificial trees that are rainbow-coloured. So, if you’re feeling adventurous and want to have a Christmas tree that coordinates with your home decor and other Christmas ornamentation in more original ways than just good old red and green, here are some ideas to get you started.

Pick a Palette That Uses Your Year-Round Colour Scheme… Then Build On It

Choose a minimalist Christmas colour palette that matches the colours adorning your home year-round. For example, if you have white walls, decorate your tree with white ornaments and garland. If you complement your white walls with black pieces such as black picture frames and bookshelves, bring the black out even further with black and white wrapping paper for your gifts and black tree ornaments.

Or, if your living room decor features wood and blue, pick up Christmas home decor like this spray white/blue bead to further expand on that colour palette for Christmas. Don’t forget to use tree ornaments that also echo these colours.

Easily Interchangeable Home Decor Pieces That Reinforce Any Colour Palette

Whatever colour palette you choose for the holidays, there are a few easily interchangeable decor items that are available in an array of colours and can therefore reinforce virtually any palette:

• Tree ornaments. Tree ornaments come in every shape and colour these days. One of my personal favourites is the Christmas ball ornament, truly synonymous with Christmas no matter what colour it is.
• Candles. We all love the glow of candles during the holidays, and you can buy almost any colour imaginable.
• Flowers. Amaryllis and Christmas cactus are known for blooming happily in the winter. Poinsettias come in more colours than red, and because of this they complement a variety of decor themes. You could also use bouquets of other flowers less commonly associated with Christmas. All that matters is if they match your colour palette.
• Houseplant pots and planters. If you have plants in plastic nursery pots, you can easily pop them in and out of larger decorative pots and planters featuring colours that fit your palette. 
• Wrapping paper. Yes, this is a home decor item too, especially if you’re the type who shops early and gets those gifts under the tree well before Christmas Day.

What Else is Going to Be Part of Your Holiday Home Decor Theme?

There is more to your holiday home decor theme than the colour palette. What else do you want to include? Snowmen, snowflakes, Santa, the nativity scene, elves, reindeer, gnomes, winter birds, pickles… This is a glorious opportunity to celebrate your favourite Christmas motifs or reflect your personality in your theme… or both! Here’s where you get to do whatever gives you the most delight. As long as your item(s) of choice are featured on both your tree and in other places in your home, you can consider yourself coordinated.

  There’s never been a wider variety of Christmas tree ornaments on the market to fit almost any theme you can imagine. Items you choose for your theme can go well beyond the traditional Christmas characters! If you want a theme with dolphins, or pickles, or alphabet letters, or citrus fruits, you can find all of these in Christmas tree ornament form.

Also, if you’re having trouble choosing a colour palette, try picking an item first and then seeing what colours that item suggests. This year, for example, a popular decorating trend is cardinals (here’s one of my favourite cardinal pieces, a gorgeous glass tree light with cardinal). The cardinal suggests a colour palette that starts with red and could incorporate other classic bold Christmas colours like gold and evergreen.

Should Christmas Stockings Match the Tree?

Yes, if you like! This is another wonderful way to coordinate your tree with home decor. The easiest way to match your stockings with the tree is to sew or buy a matching tree skirt and stockings made with the same cloth. There’s no need to stop with the tree skirt and stockings, either—you could also have matching throw pillows, blankets, or pyjamas.

Want More Theme and Colour Palette Ideas?

You’re in luck: we’ve styled six of the newest holiday trends, complete with colour palette descriptions and theme ideas, in our Christmas Shop. May you explore some new decorating ideas, discover fetching decorations, and create a tree and home decor theme that fills you with joy this holiday season