If you’re searching for unique decorating the house for Christmas ideas, welcome! Step inside this year’s festive home tour and discover fresh, inspiring DIY Christmas decorating ideas that will bring unique warmth and affordable magic to your holiday season! Easy ideas using real branches, pinecones, faux candles, spray snow and quirky surprises! 

This year’s Christmas decorating ideas: 2025 home tour

 

Happy New Year!

With another big festive season in the books, there’s now some breathing space to reflect.

The buildup this year for me was full and busy with my video work. Which resulted in some pretty epic decorating the house for Christmas ideas for this year, so there’s that!

Needing all my Christmas decorating to stage those projects generally has me running on the later side for all things home tour. However, it always works out. Once I can set the camera down, then it’s time for my home. And while I went easy this year, there was certainly enough to bring up that festive mood nearly everywhere you glanced. 

So today I’m sharing a few areas of my own home decorated for Christmas for some fresh inspiration! While it isn’t one of the larger full home tours, it’s a mini version of how you can create a beautifully decorated home with just a few DIY or found items!

Christmas fireplace mantel

 

Decorating the house for Christmas always includes a new mantel look! This year’s Christmas fireplace mantel is a nod towards nature. With a big rustic twig wreath filled with some ‘fire logs’, glass jars filled with faux snow and some real greenery, the look was further illuminated in the evenings with a string of white mini lights along the mantel behind all the decor.

And with the addition of a couple of pearl necklaces I borrowed from my mom’s costume jewelry collection, it looked very cozy, casual and pretty all-in-one!

I sure love a good mix of nature to chime in with my own holiday decor!

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Get this look

 

• Large twig wreath
• Gold bottle brush trees
• Evergreen branches
• Glass jars with wire clip lids
• Faux snow
• White mini lights
• thicker yet small branches from outdoors

The new-old Christmas tree find

 

• Artificial 7.5′ Christmas tree – found at Value Village, Chilliwack, BC, Canada for $100
• Color and warm white LED lights with step button and remotes
• Imported by Costco Canada
• 1900230
• HERE is a similar Christmas tree on Amazon USA
• And here’s a similar Christmas tree at Costco Canada

This year’s living room Christmas tree is a new find from Value Village of all things, with a fun story!

I was shopping with my son, ‘requesting’ we stop in for a quick peek. He knows me well… so he parked outside and cranked up his tunes fully knowing my simple pitstops can become anything but.

Not even really shopping for a tree, my eyes glanced on this used Christmas tree beauty that was prelit, but not all the lights worked. I fell hard for the realistic branches, knowing it was a special find for certain… then after fiddling with the light control that offered coloured and white lights along with some blinking options, I decided I wanted it anyway, even if I needed to add my own lights where the others didn’t work.

The tree was so big, heavy and massive, it was too hard to get back into the box! So we stuffed the tree in the back of my son’s SUV as-is beside the massive box. LOL

But the best part? Once the tree was set up, it basically ‘sprung’ to the proper shape as if it was made of rubber! There was not even one branch to rearrange!

As for the lights? I found the broken wire nearly immediately, then did some wire surgery on it until I got the lights to work again! SO unexpected! So this is officially the easiest tree to decorate EVER.

Close up of tree

 

But honestly, it’s also the prettiest tree we’ve ever owned! It’s originally around $600 from Costco in which we landed just under $100. Or for $50 if you do the girl math of me returning all the lights I just purchased for our old tree. Whoop!!!

The tree is so thick, all the decorations basically hang on the outside of it which is fine by me! It still has a very natural rustic look to it and I couldn’t be more pleased. 

To keep the Christmas decor look casual, I strung some neutral grapevine garland around it, then stuck to large pinecones, larger brown ornaments with the odd touch of deep cranberry for a more subdued color palette. It really is a stunning tree I’m so pleased to own!

After Christmas for the winter time of year, I removed all the ornaments while turning just the white lights on. And it’s just as gorgeous! And just for fun, I’ve included a video of our shopping experience I shared in stories below!

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Video Story: Christmas tree shopping

 

Here’s a short video clip of our tree buying and fixing up experience!

Ice bucket is from The Jilly Box membership – as seen in The Jilly Box Market HERE

Christmas candles vignette

 

Decorating the house for Christmas always includes candles! Even if they are faux!

After landing some faux candles from the thrift store, I teamed them up with a large glass ice bucket, then placed a real candle on the fry pan tiered tray. Then dressed the whole works up with real evergreen branches, pinecones, faux snow with faux frosted cranberries and bottle brush trees.

View the frypan tiered tray tutorial HERE

The look is rustic yet elevated sitting on the little vintage dresser coffee table.

I’m telling you, those fry pans are going to get overused this year, I just adore them so much!

The biggest surprise was falling in love with this glass ice bucket! I had just found a battery operated jumbo candle from the thrift store, which suited the bucket I got inside a membership box perfectly, while keeping the faux snow intact.

The snow was another very happy thrift store find. It’s a high end variety by Pottery Barn, which is the most stunning faux white flaky plastic snow I’ve ever laid eyes on. Along with the frosted cranberries, the vignette really turned out stunning, especially while flickering in the evenings.

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Get this look:

 

• Glass ice bucket
• Large pine cones
• Evergreen branches
• Faux frosted cranberries
• Gold bottle brush trees
• Wicker ornaments
• Pottery Barn Faux Snow
• Battery operated faux candles

View wooden snowman with sock toque tutorial HERE

Decorated junk lamp

 

The junk lamp got strung up with Christmas cards!

And the little wooden snowman is the perfect nod to winter, teamed up with a faux tree seedling.

Santas and gnomes brush valance

 

Moving to the primary bathroom, a tension rod is twisted up with real evergreen branches touched with spray snow, then paint brush santas and gnomes hang from the rod. A very quirky unexpected twist!

Purchase most Fusion Mineral Paint products for 10% off HERE

Aren’t the paint brush Santas and Gnomes the cutest though?! This is a project I created for a Hometalk video which didn’t make it on the blog. But if you’d like to see the tutorial, gimme the word and I’ll get it up for the next round of Christmas decorating ideas!

The texture was created by mixing Fusion’s Fresco (10% off) to Casement paint (10% off) to get the snowy beard look.

Realistic faux potted Christmas tree is from Rona Canada HERE

Primary bedroom tree

 

And even my bedroom received some cozy vibes! This little mini Christmas tree sits on an old vintage trunk parked in front of a large barnwood framed leaning mirror I created HERE.

I actually didn’t love the LED lights, so I turned them off and strung some incandescent lights on instead. But they died on me! So I turned the LED back on, removed one burnt out string then gave up. It was time to watch movies, not unstring more lights. Next year I’ll do it right the first time. LOL

But it’s a very cute and realistic looking tree. You can see it lit up as our main Christmas tree last year HERE

Ensuite stars collection on towel hooks

 

Moving to my ensuite, I hung up every star I had on hand on these towel hooks, plus made a 3D star out of cardboard! I think I’ll be sharing the cardboard star on the blog once I shoot a tutorial for it. It turned out so cool and it was honestly made from a simple piece of cardboard salvaged from a box!

Even though stars look awesome for decorating your house for Christmas, they also work for the rest of the year too!

Summary of this season

 

Decorating the house for Christmas helped create the exact ambiance I was after. This season was actually very quiet and slow, which I was super grateful for after such a busy build-up. We celebrated Christmas Eve, then my son went to his girlfriend’s for a few days, leaving me in complete quiet bliss with goodies, plenty of food, a cat on my lap and all the chocolate and coffee possible. 

I stayed in pjs or loungewear and finished the series Parenthood, then Stranger Things. I was plenty busy doing absolutely nothing, allowing my festive surroundings to really sink in and I couldn’t’ have been happier!

On New Year’s Day, I took this photo shoot, then the very next day all the decorations came down, while leaving up the trees. The look is now very clean and minimal yet till cozy, which is exactly the look I was going for.

And with the close of another season, thanks again for loyally following along my stories, projects, mistakes and all. It’s always such a pleasure to connect with you over the year. Your replies to stories or comments on the blog truly inspire me in a way I cannot do on my own. So thank-YOU for being such a valued part of my life!

Wishing you the Happiest New Year!

What were your thoughts on this season? I’d love to hear your stories!

View all my Christmas projects and tours from one page HERE