Pretty Christmas Living Rooms

Add some Christmas touches to your living room with these decorating tips to change your house from everyday decor to holiday cheer.

view all thumbnails

Use a Simple Color Scheme

Make the Most of a Small Room

Hang a Unique Wreath

Add Unexpected Greenery

Make Your Decorations Sparkle

Go with Bright Colors

Accent a Central Table

Mix Modern and Traditional Decorating Styles

Play Up Colors in Your Home

Swap Artwork for Christmas-Theme Prints

Create a Kid-Friendly Room

Choose a Smaller Tree

Add Cheer Without a Mantel

Decorate with Christmas Collectibles

Try an Unique Color Scheme

Use Nontraditional Christmas Decorations

Add Seasonal Focus

Utilize Existing Shelf Space

Create Cabin-Style Christmas Cheer

Dress Up Existing Decor

Keep Christmas Additions Casual

Make Everything Glow

Decorate with Antiques

Skip the Traditional Christmas Tree

Use Small Accents for a Subtle Look

Mix and Match Patterns

Add Golden Charm

Set the Scene with Poinsettias

shop bhg

Crate & Barrel Naga 18" Pillow $59.95 Crate & Barrel

Crate & Barrel Linen Knit White 18" Pillow $49.95 Crate & Barrel

Brentwood Originals Brentwood Originals Carnival Stripe Pillow $14.99 Sears

Crate & Barrel Hayward Off White 18" Pillow $19.95 Crate & Barrel

Anthology Anthology? Olsen Round Faux-Suede Decorative Toss Pillow $29.99 Bed Bath & Beyond

Hayneedle Grande Pillows - Set of 2 $99.99 Hayneedle

Hayneedle Zoe Pillow Set - Sunset $91.98 Hayneedle

Zoe Decorative Pillows Zoe Decorative Pillows Insects and Butterflies on Gold Silk Pillow $190.00 Bellacor

shop all bhg

Related Links

Simple Low-Cost Christmas Projects

Keep holiday spending under control with these eas...

Decorate Your Mantel for Christmas

Let these beautiful mantel arrangements turn your ...

Simple Ways to Decorate for Christmas

Try these quick and easy ideas to make your home s...

Easy Holiday Centerpiece

Holiday decorations can be just as easy as plantin...

Your Comment:

Use a Simple Color Scheme

A classic white living room can be holiday-ready in minutes with a few pops of red. Keep the decorating to a minimum and your living room Christmas cozy with a red-and-white beaded garland strung across the mantel. For more no-fuss holiday accents, stack birch logs in the fireplace and set reindeer-theme accent pillows on chairs.

See more Christmas color decorating schemes.

Make the Most of a Small Room

For smaller living rooms without a fireplace, arrange the chairs around a central table topped with a simple display of holiday berries and flowers. Intersperse Christmas figurines among year-round decor on shelving units, string a simple evergreen garland, and hang stockings on the shelving doorknobs for festive cheer.

Hang a Unique Wreath

Give your living room a modern spin for the holidays -- and focus on the fireplace -- with a nontraditional wreath. Fill a wicker basket with freshly clipped evergreen boughs, leafy stems, and berried twigs from the backyard and hang above the fireplace. Tie the decor together with more greenery in a rustic urn by the chair and on the mantel as a simple garland.

Add Unexpected Greenery

You don't have to remove existing decor when decorating for Christmas -- instead, you can simply work around it. Hang plain wreaths over large photo frames to instantly bring cheer to your living room. Add a bouquet of poinsettias, a ceramic dish of colorful ornaments, and a few winter-theme pillows to create a casual holiday look.

Make Your Decorations Sparkle

Dress up your living room with sparkling accents to create a cheery feel for Christmas. Set clusters of silver, gold, and icy blue ornaments on the mantel in clear vases and apothecary jars nestled amongst a leafy garland. Light blue beads form another easy mantel hanging along with cozy felted stockings. Off to the side, the frosted tree is what really sparkles, with white lights and icy blue and silver accent ornaments.

Go with Bright Colors

Give traditional colors a break and use the rainbow to inspire your Christmas decorations. Bright blue, pink, green, and gold ornaments hang from this twinkling evergreen, giving new meaning to the term "merry and bright." Wrap presents in brightly colored wrapping paper and hang a colorful beaded garland from the windows to round out the eclectic decorating scheme.

Accent a Central Table

Add a simple, rustic feel to your living room for the holidays with a few pieces of greenery. Long curtains frame a large window that displays a no-fuss evergreen and pinecone wreath. Clipped pine boughs in an oversize glass jar tied with a large ribbon create a stunning focal point, and a footed ceramic dish atop a few books holds an easy display of mixed nuts.

Mix Modern and Traditional Decorating Styles

If you like to stick with traditional colors, mix your decorating styles for a fun holiday look. Hang tall socks on the fireplace mantel as stockings, and stack wrapped presents and old suitcases in an unused fireplace. Display a bouquet of holiday poinsettias in a white vase on a coffee table next to a tray of white pillar candles, ornaments, and greenery. Use pinecones and burlap accents to bring a rustic and comfortable feel to your Christmas living room.

Play Up Colors in Your Home

Use the existing color scheme in your living room to inspire your Christmas decorations. Wide gold ribbon wrapped around the tree ties into the golden walls to create an earth-tone look. Off-white stockings match the fireplace and some of the tree ornaments to tie the decor together.

Swap Artwork for Christmas-Theme Prints

The Christmas tree is often the focal point of the living room, but remember to spread a little cheer throughout the room. Replace everyday artwork with yuletide-theme images, such as the framed vintage poster shown here.

Create a Kid-Friendly Room

Create a winter wonderland with candy store inspiration and miniature trees. Fill large glass jars with classic Christmas favorites, such as peppermint sticks and ribbon candy. Accent the space with small tabletop Christmas trees decorated with candy.

See more Clever Christmas Candy Decorations

Choose a Smaller Tree

Try a smaller Christmas tree to avoid overwhelming a cozy room. To give a downsized tree more prominence and height, pot it in a tall garden urn. Then outfit the tree with an out-of-the-ordinary color scheme, such as the aqua and orange seen here, which can be incorporated into the rest of the room.

Add Cheer Without a Mantel

Have a fireplace but no mantel? Compensate for the bare facade with an oversize wreath, which fills the space above the fireplace. Complete the look by adding some festive decorations to the hearth, such as berry branches in a pitcher or miniature decorative cone trees.

Decorate with Christmas Collectibles

Display Christmas keepsakes in groupings around your living room rather than just in one spot. Here, Santa figurines line the mantel and the flanking shelves. The arrangement on the ottoman extends the Santa Claus theme to the rest of the room.

Editor's Tip: Add visual interest by incorporating traditional elements (such as the poinsettias shown here) to some of your groupings. This also is an easy way to expand your displays.

Try an Unique Color Scheme

Punch up traditional red and green with a zing of an unexpected hue, such as fuchsia. Introduce the color in small doses: a throw on the couch, ribbon on a wreath, trim around a lampshade, or even gift wrap on the packages. Here, miniature white feather trees are bedecked all in pink to bring the color center stage.

See more fun Christmas color schemes.

Use Nontraditional Christmas Decorations

For a smaller room, update existing furniture and accessories. A glass lamp base is filled with shiny ornaments, and footed silver bowls display fruits and poinsettias on the coffee table. Instead of a traditional tree, small potted evergreens are shaped into tall topiaries.

Add Seasonal Focus

Introducing your Christmas tree to the flow of your existing living room may take a little leg work. Consider rearranging your furniture so the pieces are grouped around the tree. If furniture is oriented towards the fireplace or TV, angle your chairs and sofa slightly so the tree becomes the focus.

Utilize Existing Shelf Space

Clear your display shelves of their everyday elements and replace with boxes wrapped in pretty papers and ribbons that match your holiday decor. In this room, trendy blue and brown mingle with white and gray to create a frosty, elegant Christmas look.

See more pretty gift wraps and bows.

Create Cabin-Style Christmas Cheer

Stay true to your decorating roots. Coordinate holiday decorations to fit the style of the house. Here, this cabin used earthy reds, greens, and golds for Christmas cheer.

Dress Up Existing Decor

A red toile sofa gets dressed for the holidays with the addition of luxe crimson and white pillows. Small seasonal extras bring the Christmas look full circle. Wrapped presents are perched on side tables and the coffee table is topped with a potted orchid resting inside an ornament-filled basket.

Editor's Tip: Replace artwork with wreaths for Christmas, or hang wreaths over existing frames as shown here.

Keep Christmas Additions Casual

For a formal space, keep things simple with low-key Christmas decorations. Here, the stately tree becomes the room's focal point, bearing a graceful assortment of red, gold, and silver ornaments. Sprigs of greenery, gold pinecones, and leaf vines lounge on the mantel, and candle-and-ornament arrangements add sparkle to the side table and coffee table.

Make Everything Glow

The sparkling gold ornaments and shimmering gold garland make the light colors of this living room glow in the natural afternoon light. At night, the fireplace creates a scene of dancing lights.

Decorate with Antiques

Antiques -- such as the ornate candle scones above the fireplace, five-generations worth of ornaments on the Christmas tree, and a weathered old trunk -- fill this living room with history. The boughs of magnolia draped across the mantel and the square wreath hung above are fresh additions to the decor.

Skip the Traditional Christmas Tree

This year, forget about searching for the perfect pine. Fabricate a grouping of tannenbaums from branches gathered from the yard. Exhibit the statuesque sticks in tall glass cylinders filled with rock-salt crystals. Embellish the branches with white doves, and place them in front of a window to spotlight their forms.

Use Small Accents for a Subtle Look

If your living room features a neutral color palette, introduce a few pops of red for Christmas. Nonseasonal accents, such as red pillows or candles, will help retain the living room's original look without going into Christmas overload. Keep the Christmas look subtle by adding potted evergreens or rosemary plants on a sofa table and a simple garland above the door.

Mix and Match Patterns

This room sports a medley of patterns, prints, and textures. Festive year-round, it's especially cheerful at Christmas with a sparkling tree and a lush mantel.

Add Golden Charm

A golden living room with a French limestone mantel showcases an antique console and rug. The lush Christmas tree, decorated in flowers, gold ribbons, and sparkling lights, makes the room glow.

Set the Scene with Poinsettias

Bright poinsettias and Santa's sleigh set the holiday scene in this living room. A red-and-green drum added to the coffee table and a Santa pillow tossed on the sofa reinforce the theme.

Pretty Christmas Living Rooms

Top Brands

Top Searches