The gift of Christmas style
Over the years we’ve seen Christmas décor trends go from grandiose glamour to parred back simplicity. Abode’s interior design expert Katy Husband from Feather & Oak shares some memories and tips for styling the season.
“...remember that your home, whatever the season,, should reflect you.”
There are many levels of intensity when styling your home for Christmas – I was brought up in level 10 of 10.
In my childhood home, Christmas started at Canterbury Show weekend when we packed away all the existing styling accessories to the attic and boxes and boxes of Christmas decorations were trundled down three flights of stairs to be unpacked and displayed around the ground floor of our home. My mother has always loved Christmas, and as an artist, creative, and giver of joy, decorating and opening our home to the public was the perfect amalgamation of it all.
We have tried many different themes over the years in the house but landed on a journey through the rooms of traditional, modern, garden, kitchen and folk. I learned about the practices and traditions of many Northern European countries whilst giving ‘tours’ in my late teens and because of the family love of Christmas we have developed many traditions over the years during the decoration phase.
My own family home at Christmas time does not reflect the breadth of decoration of my childhood – it is a more restrained and styled approach. However, we do have favourite pieces that the children grow more attached to every year. I struggled with the hot mess of homemade preschool decorations on my beautiful tree, so some years ago, we created the ‘children’s tree’. This is a tree that I am not allowed to decorate, but something the four children can have full styling control over (I will, however, neither confirm nor deny that some small tweaks to this tree may occur after all small bodies are sleeping in bed!).
Although there is much romance attached to a winter Christmas, there are many positives to our summer Christmas vibes in the Southern Hemisphere. Long lazy lunches, barbecues and parties in temperate evenings, and delicious cocktails late afternoon. Our approach to styling at Christmas can also range from the relaxed to the more formal. As we continue to grow into our style, we can handpick the best from abroad and filter it through our local environment and individual taste.
If you want to introduce a small taste of Christmas into your home interior perhaps pick a spot on a console or bookshelf where you can introduce a Christmas vignette – maybe a tray housing a candle, vase of flowers and Christmas ornament. If you wish to present a larger festive theme to your space, think about colour, scale, accessibility and focal points. And don’t forget about your outdoor areas! There are gorgeous outdoor trees, lights and decorations.
Wherever you sit on the scale of your approach to Christmas interiors, this is a time of year when you can mix up the usual and introduce some festive style. Curate the elegant and beautiful, the joyful and meaningful, and remember that your home, whatever the season, should reflect you.
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