Progressive Christmas Decorating: Getting your Home Decorated While Preserving Your Energy!

Christmasing is not a one-day event in our home. Every year, at the beginning of December, I have the family help me get out the Christmas boxes.  Then, I take about a week to decorate the house.  Gradually the house fills with the sounds and sights of the season, and I preserve my energy during the decorating process.  I have developed and refined the art of progressive Christmas decorating, and it’s become one of my favorite times of the season.

I’m not exactly sure when I began making Christmas decorating a week-long process. At some point, my energy and time didn’t allow me to do it all in one pass.  So, I learned how to break it up.  I would tackle a few boxes a day until they were all done. Before I knew it, I looked forward to the week of Christmasing. 

The Benefits of Progressive Christmas Decorating

Flexible Scheduling:  Maybe your children are busy during the day with school and available only on weekday evenings.  Do you have a spouse who travels for business? Maybe the best time for them to help is on the weekends. You may have energy in the morning and would love to decorate a little bit before work.  With progressive decorating, everyone can help when they’re available. 

Fatigue Friendly: In 2019, I underwent radiation treatment during the holiday season.  I was extremely exhausted and could only decorate for short periods of time.  Progressive Christmas Decorating allowed me to decorate in fifteen-minute increments and rest when I was tired.

All Attention Spans Welcome: I have encouraged my boys to decorate the home with us since they were old enough to toddle around and put an ornament or two on the tree.  When they were little, they didn’t have long attention spans.  So, we would take quick breaks from school to decorate. When they were bored, we stopped. It was a fun seasonal activity, and breaking it up worked well for their short attention spans.

Prolong the excitement: I find something magical about Christmas decorating.  As I open the boxes, I remember who gave us the decorations, reflect on the season’s purpose, and relish the hope Christmas brings each year.  I love to prolong the excitement of decorating and feel that spark each day while we’re decorating.

Progressive Christmas decorating is an excellent way to enjoy the Christmasing process while not exhausting myself.  I love planning for this time of year and embracing the week of decorating.  Because I know I have plenty of time to put the decorations up, it is a relaxing process and not a stressful one.

Keys to Success for Progressive Christmas Decorating

Over the years, I’ve developed a system that works well for our family.  Here are some things that help me focus on decorating, even when I stretch it out over time.

Accessible Storage Box Location: One of the biggest keys to success for progressive Christmas decorating is having an accessible storage location for your boxes. Where do your boxes live when it’s not Christmas?  In our previous home, the boxes lived in a loft only accessible by my husband on a ladder.  This meant I needed to be deliberate about when I started and finished decorating.  He was the only one who could get them out and put them away.  Dave travels quite a bit for business, so I needed to plan my decorating around his travel schedule.  When we moved into this home, I decided to put the boxes in our inside storage closet under the stairs.  This location was accessible to the boys and I whether or not Dave was traveling.  This decision has been key to my progressive decorating strategy.  We can get the boxes out anytime we want; most critically, I can easily put the boxes away one at a time! 

Strategic Staging Area:  Where you put the Christmas boxes during your week of decorating is critical.  It should be central to where most of the decorations will go, but not in the way to cause frustration.  Ideally, the boxes would be in a convenient place but outside the path of your everyday activities.  For the first couple of years in this home, I put the boxes in the school room.  That was a bad idea.  We were constantly bumping into them during the school day, and having the decorations there distracted the boys during school.  So, I decided to move them into the dining room.  This worked much better.  I stack the boxes next to a wall that isn’t visible from our front door.  I like coming into the home and seeing the finished decorations, not the mess of the boxes.  Also, having a table in my staging area makes it easy to keep the boxes up high when I’m working on them.  The beagles love to grab tissue paper, so it’s critical that I keep those boxes out of their way.

Deadlines for completion:  When do you want to be done with the decorating?  Setting a completion date will help you stay on target.  I don’t want to be decorating right up to Christmas Eve, so I think about when I’d like those boxes to be put away.  Typically I like to be done by mid-December with all the boxes.  This allows me to pivot into other seasonal activities and not be stressed out with more decorating.

It doesn’t all have to go out every year:  Some years, I don’t get every decoration out.  My favorites come out each year, but sometimes I get busy and don’t get to everything.  That’s okay.  When I hit my deadline, the boxes get put away unapologetically.  The house is as Christmased as it’s going to get for that year!

Embrace Flexibility: Progressive Christmas Decorating works best when we embrace a flexible mindset.  Perfection and progressive decorating don’t mix- especially if you’re enlisting your family’s help.  It is okay if the wreath gets placed in a different room.  Maybe the nativity get’s arranged a little differently. When we embrace flexibility, we allow seasonal joy to permeate our homes.

What is the Process of Progressive Decorating (and un-decorating)?

I have a process I follow to make decorating go smoothly, even as I’m taking my time with it.  Here’s what I do each year.

1. Decide when to get out the boxes.  For me, that’s usually the week or so after Thanksgiving.  I prefer to relax the few days after Thanksgiving rather than jumping right into Christmas decorating.  But maybe you like a different schedule.  Look at your calendar and determine which week would work best for decorating.  Then get out the boxes at the beginning of that week.
2. Put on the Christmas Music!  I love to have music going when I’m decorating.  So, for me, the first step is to put on the music.  Then I can get to work!
3. Get out the boxes: I know this is basic stuff here.  But, sometimes, the biggest hurdle is to follow through on getting out the boxes.
4. Stage the boxes in a convenient but not annoying location.
5. Begin with your favorite things.  I love starting with getting the trees out.  I have one in the family room and one in the living room.  We need to move some furniture around to make it work for Christmas, so I make sure to plan that activity when I have help to move things around. 
6. Take breaks when you’re tired or not enjoying yourself.  When the decorating stops being fun, that’s your signal to stop.  The whole point of progressive decorating is to enjoy Christmasing, not hate it.
7. Pick one area to work on at a time.  I have my boxes loosely labeled with what’s inside them and what room they go in.  I focus on one room or project at a time.  I enjoy the process of completing one area at a time.
8. Put the boxes away as you go. As you finish a box, put it away.  This is why having a convenient storage area is critical.  The home gradually returns to normal as we put those boxes away.
9. Plan when you’ll undecorate. I don’t start putting the Christmas decorations away until after New Year’s Day.  By that time, I’m rested up from Christmas, and the kids are back to school.  I’m ready to say goodbye to the decorations gradually.  I usually take a few days to undecorate the home as well.

I love gradually decorating our home for the holidays.  It gives me something fun and seasonal to look forward to each day during the decorating week. It also helps me stay grounded and rested during a season that can be busy and overwhelming.  As we head into the holidays, I hope you find ways to embrace the season’s peace, joy, and beauty.