My Minimalism-Friendly Christmas Decor.

I have always thought that I'd be one of those people who goes all out for Christmas. You know, that kind of person who has every single surface of their home decked out in garland and tinsel? Surprise! Or maybe not. I have a very minimalist setup. And that's not because I like Christmas less than I used to. I actually love it, and I love seeing extravagant decorations. But whatever you put up has to come down at the end of the season, and that's not honestly even the worst part. I think that actually one of the harder things for me to reconcile is all the stuff that we buy at Christmas. And I'm not talking about gifts. You be as generous as you want. I also love giving gifts. What I'm talking about is like all of the extra stuff that we buy to be Christmassy. I mean, as a society, we've just decided that it's okay to buy all of these single-use, one-time-a-year items for Christmas. And honestly, as somebody who tries to stay pretty minimalist with my things, I can't have a whole holiday that's just tons and tons of stuff that I can only use once a year. I want to use my stuff throughout the year if I'm going to store it. So I'm left with this consumerism bubble that is Christmas, but I decided to pop it. I think Christmas has always been this way to a certain extent, but I think the excess in recent years is also an outgrowth of the fact that social media has made us obsessed with aesthetics. We think that if our spaces look Christmassy enough, the joy of Christmas will fill the empty void inside of us, or at least get us a few extra likes. And listen, I'm as casually depressed as the next person, and I'm here to tell you, you don't need all that stuff. Seriously. If you want it, great. But if the decorations aren't working and you're starting to realize that joy of Christmas isn't all based on how you decorate, but in the time you have for the things and people that truly bring joy to your life, I want to give you a little encouragement along that path by showing you how we managed to have cute and cozy, but still minimalist friendly Christmas vibes. Our entire setup takes 30 minutes to set up or tear down or whatever, and it all fits in these boxes. We have this cute little Christmas tree that we bought at Ikea the first year we were married. It's a little under five feet tall and two and a half feet wide, so it's small enough that it only takes two strands of lights. I don't love the look of a plain plastic tree stand, so I bought a tree skirt online for underneath. But the thing that really saves time and makes this minimalist friendly is that we don't put ornaments on it. We've done ribbon with lights or instead of lights, and we love the simplicity and cohesion of this look. Without the ornaments, this tree doesn't take a ton of time to set up at all. What takes the most time is deciding where to put it and moving any furniture we might need to move to make that possible. And I know it probably sounds like a travesty to many of you not to use ornaments, and we do have a few that we like to hang up. So we use the tree my husband already had before we got married. It's pre-lit and has room for a few ornaments representing key events in our lives, and we just leave them on it and put it back in the box at the end of the season. It's also a really small size that we can put on the counter in our dining room. This works really really well for us right now. I'm not exactly sure how long we'll be able to sustain it once we start having kids, but we do have space for at least a few of their ornaments if they get started with their own collections. And I wouldn't be opposed to getting them their own little trees that they can decorate however they'd like. My parents did that for my sister and I when we were kids, and we loved it. The stockings are a new addition for us this year, but one I'm very excited about. My dog has had a stocking every year that we've had her. It's where I put a few treats or other goodies for her on Christmas so she can share in the excitement. But before this year, she was the only one who had a stocking, so it usually just went under the tree. But this year my husband and I also have some stockings, one that we got for him at a Christmas store and one that I made for myself. So I bought these stocking holders that we can just stick on top of our under TV cabinets since we don't have a mantle. I am so excited to build their stockings this year. There are really only a couple of other things we set up. We have this cute little Christmas camper that lights up. It was a wedding shower gift, and it's a wax warmer. Another gift someone gave us is this cute Christmas pillow. I like to set it on the reading nook for extra festivity and back support. I also have a couple of Christmassy cinnamon or pine scented candles, but I honestly burn them year-round, so I store them with my other candles. Outside is kind of a bonus category. Growing up, we didn't really do anything outside, and I don't really think of it first thing when I think about Christmas decorations. But we do have some string lights that we turn on at Christmas. To be completely honest with you, we leave these string lights up year-round. They're white bulbs, and they look really cute. Can you kind of tell they're Christmas lights from the road? Probably. Do we care? Absolutely not. They're perfect for adding a little extra cuteness and festivity and light throughout the year, and they're especially festive at Christmas. Plus, leaving them up means we'll know when they stop working. And in the meantime, we have absolutely no extra setup time. Just flip a switch and they're on. I don't feel like the presents really count as decorating because they're for other people. I'm not picking packages that will go perfectly with our tree nor my wrapping gifts the moment we set up our Christmas decorations so that the tree won't be empty. It can be empty. I'm fine with that. But I did want to show you how we simplify our Christmas wrapping. We've been doing this for three years now, and I love it. First, we use brown craft paper. I love it because it's neutral and natural looking. You can write on it in both white and black pen. It goes with everything, and it works for every occasion, not just Christmas. If you prefer the look of a white wrapping, you can also get white craft paper, but either one is fine. I also have a box of ribbons and tape that we can use to make the packages look cute. That's a little full at the moment, but we were running low last year, so I went a little ham on the after Christmas sales, and it should even out after this holiday, hopefully. We do have a few rolls of paper for other occasions or just that we had leftover from before we started using mostly brown paper, and that's okay. They all fit in this bag that I have for the wrapping paper, so I'm not too worried about it. And it is fun occasionally to pull out a paper like this, for example, because my mother-in-law loves koalas, and this is just a really fun one to wrap her gifts in. The point of using mainly one type of wrapping paper is that it simplifies decision making. We buy a big roll so we don't run out, and it's easy to just wrap it, pick a ribbon, and write the name of the recipient on it. It looks pretty under the tree too. And that's it! All that's left for our minimalist Christmas setup is to put on some Christmas music and heat up the hot cocoa. We have time to do the things that actually foster the Christmas spirit, like reading a Christmas devotional, texting a friend, or talking about all the things we have to be grateful for. And that's a better feeling than all the garland and light in the world. I hope that this has inspired you a little bit to think about how you can simplify and declutter your Christmas stuff if you find yourself just overwhelmed by the amount that there is to set up, or if, you know, later in the year you're walking around it in storage and thinking, why is this here? I have so much of it. And if you've made it this far, I hope you have a very Merry Christmas, and I'll see you in the next video. Bye!