Easy Decoration Ideas That'll Holiday up Your Home

Make your mantel look amazing with a colorful assortment of vintage and inexpensive evergreens. The bottle‐brush variety are readily available online and at crafts stores; the miniature ones were plucked from a model train set. Votives make the snow‐dusted landscape sparkle.

Bag-O-Frosted topiaries, $13, department56.com.

To make comings and goings much more festive, gather a variety of crafts-store bells (these are red, gold, and silver), and string them onto two loops of wire. Mold them into a cluster shape, twist the ends of the loops together, and tie on a big bow. Hang the ornament from a doorknob with a piece of cord. 

Creatology jingle bells, 16 mm, 20 mm, and 30 mm, from $4.50 a bag, michaels.com.

Enjoy candlelight without the fire hazard by placing LED votives on windowsills, mantels, and stairs. 

Pottery Barn flameless plastic votive candles, $20 for 4, potterybarn.com. Everlasting votive candles, $15 for 10, bedbathandbeyond.com.

Nope, they're not just for kids. These John Robshaw beauties add texture and color to any space -- and can eb put to new use: Fill sachets with fallen pine needles, tuck them inside the stockings, and perfume your home in a stealth way. 

John Robshaw Wana and Tuwan stockings, $99 each, johnrobshaw.com.

Christmas crackers -- prettily wrapped cylinders that hold tiny gifts and emit a loud pop when pulled apart -- date back to mid‐19th‐century Great Britain. Place a pile in a bowl by your front door, and send guests home with a jolly fun party favor.

Olde English crackers, from $24 for 6, oldenglishcrackers.com.

Rather than tucking mistletoe in a doorway, make family meals warm and fuzzy with an overhead centerpiece. Wrap a wreath frame with fresh eucalyptus and faux mistletoe (toxins in the real berries can harm kids and pets), and attach ornaments with floral wire. 

Ashland wire wreath frame, 18", $4, michaels.com. Artificial mistletoe spray, 3" by 30", $5, factorydirectcraft.com.

To set up this modern menorah, arrange eight bud vases in a row, with a taller one in the middle, and place tapers inside. For added stability, put a bit of candle glue in the bottom of each vase. Post‐holiday, repurpose the vessels for greenery or small garden clippings.

Stick-Um candle adhesive, $11, amazon.com. Jamali Garden glass crystal bud vases, $10 for 5", $13 for 7", jamaligarden.com. Metallic taper candles, 12", in Silver, $17 for 12, candles4less.com.