How I’ve Decorated for the Holidays the Last 8 Years…

I have an equal love of nostalgia and “holiday,” thus the birth of this post. Over the last 8 years, I’ve decorated and shot my house for the holidays for your and my pleasure, and boy is it fun to see what weird, special insanity I’ve shoved onto my family and you, my readers. I’ve gone from a hipster Dr. Seuss to a fairly safe and tame mom. So what did I do this year? Come back tomorrow and find out, but first let’s revisit Christmases past. Let’s get into it:

2011: Holiday Special Behinds the Scenes

In 2010, for the Secrets from a Stylist Christmas special, Orlando and I went above AND BEYOND for a family, using a mix of DIY and vintage. Orlando made his world-famous Joy to the World art, which is just white stickers on a vintage map (maybe it was white tape, I don’t remember, but stickers would work).

No terrarium was left undecorated. I found this vintage brass ship at the flea market and yes, it needed some snow/clouds to float on.

Above, on the left you’ll see some books that we turned into ‘decor’ by basically ripping them open and gluing the edges to the inside, forming a floral shape. I don’t know why we did that, but that’s creativity, folks!

On the right, you’ll see what might be the funniest and most expensive holiday DIY we’ve ever done—a SNOWMAN GLOBE FAMILY. Listen, we like to take a holiday motif and give it a twist, but what you probably didn’t predict was that each globe cost anywhere between $20 and $100, so that family trio was likely around $500 to make PLUS we had to assemble it with a DIY stand and rod. I don’t think it was ever that stable. It makes me laugh every time I accidentally find it online. EVERY TIME.

You’ll also see (above) that we made bows out of newspaper on top of some of the presents which I think is actually super cute. I’m not sure how we did it but I’m pretty impressed with us.

Lastly, we put birdhouses on our tree (I think they were just unfinished houses from a craft store) and what you might not notice is all the yarn ornaments we made and the vintage map decoupage ornaments (the images are old and not the best quality, sorry). I believe that the whole theme here for this family was “Staycation Modern” because they had two small kids and didn’t want to travel in the next couple years so we wanted their house to feel like a vacation with a nod to wanderlust (thus all the map/atlas decorations). We used eucalyptus EVERYWHERE and brought in a ton of vintage brass deer and, of course, made a huge peace sign wreath for above the fireplace.

2012: Behind the Scene of Celebrity Holiday Homes

In 2012, I did another holiday house with HGTV for Cheryl Burke—one of the Dancing with the Stars celebrities (fun fact, I had low expectations on her personality because I suppose I generalize celebrities and was judgemental, but she was awesome, hilarious and very down to earth). Hot pink was having A MOMENT and I wasn’t about to let that pass this holiday house by. So we brought in three trees, all in our hot pink theme and it looked insane. She had a thing for nutcrackers, so I didn’t just get any nutcracker to add to her collection. NO, I found this vintage nutcracker lamp in Palm Springs and had it painted white. I’m saying this completely seriously, I WISH I HAD THAT NOW. It was at least 4-feet tall and just dripping with whimsy.

Because I was apparently unable to make a basic wreath, my “wreath moment” that year was made from paper flowers. I actually still love this.

How pretty would that paper flower wreath be it if were just white with some green? Also, this was the year where I put everything under a cloche and what’s hard to see is that I painted a small village different tones of hot pink. I’m nothing if not thorough.

We painted ceramic dancers and candlesticks pink (this was when the colorblock trend was JUST beginning.

That same year, we decked our own home…

2012: I Decked My Halls The Hendersons Go Holiday

I went so far as to decorate MYSELF with a huge bow around my neck. I look like some sort of Wes Anderson flight attendant. I’m secretly very into it and I think I actually still have that skirt and vest.

Have you bought your wreath collar for your 100-pound cement dog yet? Well, there is some inspiration for you! Also, ORNAMENTS EVERYWHERE!!!! There were a lot of dollar store ornaments up there (and stockings, I believe).

I bought a ton of trees from a hobby store (I think these were for train hobbyist) because they weren’t really a thing that retailers were selling yet and created a vignette of a forest on a cloud. I still think it’s cute.

Lastly, my “wreath moment” this year was real flowers and ferns. I did it on an oasis wreath form that held water, but I still think it only lasted like 3 days and because it was full of peonies (in the winter), it probably cost like $300. It’s SO PRETTY, but if I had to do that again, I would likely just do the wild ferns because it looked a bit too “spring” or “Easter.”

We also created a Christmas tree-shaped present stack.

It’s a lot, folks. What you may not have noticed is that we made that pink art that says, “HO HO HO, HO.”

2013: My Super Easy Holiday Cocktail Party

In 2013, we created some fun holiday content at The Fig House which I still love to this day. I think that it was the beginning of a less saturated color palette for me and thus entered the blush/copper tones phase, replacing hot pink and bright gold.

That same year…

I had Charlie a couple weeks before Christmas, so we didn’t style or shoot, we just put up a HUGE real tree and put lights on it. This is the only photo I had, but of course, I LOVE how it looks. This is actually what we are doing at the mountain house—just a tree with lights and maybe some wood and white ornaments.

2014: California Winter Wonderland Glam

In 2014, I went back to glam and really did it up with a lot of warmer tones (including brown and burgundy—I TOTALLY FORGOT I DID THAT!).

It was a lot, admittedly.

The individual vignettes look great, but altogether it was a bit much. 🙂

This was my first year working with Target so I had the excuse to go all out and boy did I.

We put eucalyptus garland EVERYWHERE and apparently didn’t stop there. We put garland on the bookshelf, too. It was too much, I’ll DEFINITELY admit that. The eucaluptus garland was custom and ended up being quite expensive, so while its pretty and smells great, I don’t recommend it. Just buy a readymade pine garland and supplement with eucalyptus. Also, that “wreath” on the bookcase was just cheap garland wrapped around a huge wreath form. I should have just stopped there…

The chandelier was not left untouched, of course…and please note that EVERY SINGLE SURFACE has cotton on it. It was festive, but BOY was it a lot. This is fun for a party or a shoot and can give good ideas but obviously, don’t do ALL of these for your actual holiday decor (I mean, you can, but it might feel suffocating IRL).

2014: Target Styling Video Chapter 6

That same year, we did our first major Target video on a big set and with the help of a huge team we styled it out to be a little glam but super festive.

I want my hair back.

Here’s a woman who takes her bows VERY seriously. We put them on our bottle brush trees and even a foil bow on the cake.

2015: 12 Days of Instagram With Target

The next year, I brought back the hot pink and styled it out for a Target collaboration. It was kid-friendly, happy and full of pretty pastels. The real reason that you saw a lot of white trees back then is because A. they are fun, but B. faux trees are only now getting to look really good and you can’t get real trees before Thanksgiving but more holiday content has to be shot before then. So instead of having an artificial evergreen that you could tell was plastic from 50 feet away, going the white or metallic tree route was playful and editorial without stressing about finding a live tree.

Still putting domes on things and spreading ornaments around… 🙂

Still stacking gifts as decor…

2016: Decorating For the Holidays – Family Friendly Style

2016 is the year we moved (I believe we moved four days before Christmas), so we decorated our Glendale house in a super classic and kid-friendly way.

I love love love how that turned out and BOY DO I REGRET SELLING THAT CHAIR. UGH. It’s so cute and would be perfect at the mountain house.

We still have the caravan, truck and a lot of the accessories that we put in Charlie’s room.

It’s bright and happy and even though it’s not “sophisticated,” I still LOVE it.

2017: Our Living Room Holiday Reveal

Last year, I went super tame and neutral and while I love everything that we did for this shoot, I actually took it up a notch later in the month for a party and wish that I had shot that.

As you can see, below, adding some pinks and more garland helped take it up a notch.

2018: My First “Refined Traditional” Holiday Look…Target Style

Lastly, the Portland house, decorated with almost 100% Target this year, is still one of my absolute favorites.

I LOVED how that shoot turned out so much (thanks to my great team Brady and Emily for producing and styling it all out).

TOMORROW you’ll see our 2018 LA house holiday decor. I styled it out more for a party than for every day, learning from last year’s more tame reveal (you all called me out in the comments!) but it’s still A LOT. I apparently just love going all out. I suppose that’s because I’m a stylist.

So come back tomorrow, folks.

BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY WHICH ONE WAS YOUR FAVORITE??????

I’m strangely going to say 2016, with the bright red and green on white, but it could be just that the photography popped so much that year…or Portland…

Please weigh in…(and be sure to pop back tomorrow morning to see what I did in my home this year).