We don't decorate the whole house for Christmas, mostly because I hate tidying it all away at the end of the festive season. In fact, most of the house remains largely untouched by Christmas. Most of our Christmas decorations go in the living room, that's where the tree is and it's where we spend most of our time. We eat Christmas dinner in the conservatory so that room gets a festive update, too. And, this year, the playroom has been decorated as well.
The playroom is at the front of our house, people passing by can see into the room from the street (I imagine they are usually quite horrified by the mess). With that in mind, we decided to give it a little festive update this year. Here is some inspiration to help you update your playroom for December:
1. Put a tree up
This is the easiest way to make a room feel festive. We always get a real Christmas tree for the lounge, but we also have a big artificial tree to go in the playroom. It sits in the bay window so our house looks festive from the street. Unfortunately, the tree has a manic festive theme because Ebony decorated it herself and, for some unknown reason, piled all the tinsel on the top third of the tree.
If you don't fancy putting up a bit tree, you could go for a miniature real tree with a small string of lights to add a festive touch to the room. Pinterest has plenty of ideas for alternative, child-friendly trees, too. I love the rustic wooden pallet trees, although have never gotten around to making one myself.
2. Add some festive furnishings
Having some Christmas-themed cushions that can be simply thrown onto the sofa in December is an easy way to add a magical touch to the playroom. Since it's pretty nippy in December, you could also add a Christmas throw to the sofa for you all to snuggle under while watching Christmas movies. You could even switch the curtains, red curtains or tartan curtains would add a subtle Christmas feel to the room, and you could keep them up all year round! You can find afforable, high-quality curtains online from Direct Blinds.
3. Get creative
There is nothing Ebony loves more than being let loose on her arts and crafts box. She will stick, cut, glue and paint to her heart's content. We have made lots of Christmas decorations this year, from paper chains to baubles, Christmas cards to festive pictures. The playroom is filled with home made festive art. Ok, it's not stylish, but it takes me right back to my own childhood and the walls filled with cotton wool santas and milk bottle top garlands.
4. Christmas lights
One of my favourite Christmas traditions is to go out walking to find the best Christmas house in the village. There are quite a few to choose from, whole houses lit up with flashing snowmen and prancing reindeer. Ebony always comes home wondering why our house doesn't look like that. I wouldn't want to go overboard with lights, I like going to look at them but I wouldn't want to pay the electricity bill, but we do have a few fairy lights hung up around the room.
5. Make a window display
Spray snow, the stuff 90s Christmas dreams were made of! We used to have a box of stencils that we used to fill the playroom windows with Father Christmas shapes, smiling snowman and intricate snowflakes. I have a can of snow spray in the cupboard but haven't been able to use it this year because toddlers love eating fake snow from the windows, so I'll have to wait till next year to cover the windows with fake snow.
This is a collaborative post.
