Last Updated on June 20, 2024 by Michelle

No matter where you live, or how complicated life has been this year, you can enjoy a simple farmhouse Christmas.

It’s all in the attitude, really. And the knowledge that Simple Doesn’t Mean Easy… but it’s worth it. For lots more on that topic, follow my podcast.

See my youtube video here on this same topic.

 

Enjoy a Simple Farmhouse Christmas

1. Keep it Fun

For us this year, our favorite way to enjoy all of our decorating and wrapping evenings is to put some old vinyl on our record player.

It was a gift from the girls last Christmas and I have thoroughly loved using it, but this Christmas season has been the best.

I pulled out my family’s records from my childhood and the girls love hearing a little bit of my childhood favorites, while they may not enjoy listening to me signing along (since I never could carry a tune).

A few simple ways to keep Christmas “chores” lighthearted and relaxing:

• Put on your favorite Christmas music.
• Light some candles.
• Start your decorating season early by bringing out the twinkle lights. Long winter evenings need more light, no?
• Make time for down time, maybe even treat yourself to a long quiet walk or a bubble bath before the part of the decorating that tends to stress you out.
• Take it to heart–and remind yourself often, if need be–it is totally okay that you are not martha stewart. No one expects you to be. In fact, I’d bet your home is much more inviting and cozy than Martha’s ever would be. It’s my theory that hers is too perfect to be comfortable.

2. Forage For Decorations

Winter is dark, and nights are long here in New England. We try to get outside and get fresh air during the warmest part of the afternoon whenever possible. Whether it’s a walk with Bixby, doing farm chores, or even something as ridiculous as ice skating in the marsh (yep, we’ve done that), we need the vitamin D and exercise.

Roaming the woods and foraging for decorations is maybe the best way to follow my first tip as well, because gathering treasures together is always fun.

A few ideas of great things to forage for and how to use them

* grape vines for wreath bases.

If you use them right away after clipping them, there’s no need to soak them to make them pliable. Just meticulously wind the vines into a circle, tucking in the ends and wrapping new vines on as you go, until you have a wreath the size you’d like it to be. Then tuck in and hot-glue on other treasures from your foraging…

* dried leaves for wreaths or vases.

We have a low-growing plant that is prolific in our marsh that is perfect for this. Hayley made a gorgeous wreath from just grape vines and those leaves this year.

We also filled some pottery pieces, mason jars, and wooden barrels with the dried plant. (We have plenty of it. It’s almost like a ground cover for our marsh.)

* evergreen for wreaths and swags.

Tuck branches in a grapevine wreath to fill it with green, or cut off 1-foot-long pieces of evergreen that you tie together with twine to create a swag for hanging over doorways, windows, or mantles. You can even just lay evergreen branches wherever it works for you. We have an old horse bridle holder that was salvaged from an old barn. I love that today it holds my grandad’s horse bridle. I tossed a whole branch over it and called that corner of our TV room decorated.

* pine cones.

To dry up the sometimes-gooey sap in the pinecones, and avoid any egg cases hatching unwanted critters in your home (it’s seriously happened to me), take a few minutes to bake your pine cones. Yes. Bake.

1. Preheat oven to 200°
2. Cover a cookie sheet with aluminum foil.
3. Lay pinecones on the foil, in a single layer.
4. Bake for 1/2 hour.

3. Keep the Tree Simple (Sometimes)

This year our tree is super simple. Okay, kinda short and scrawny. Okay, a full-blown Charlie Brown tree.

How we arranged our simple tree

To get the Charlie Brown tree to stay upright took a little finagling, but it just required a few things…

• vase (or I used a 1/2 gallon Mason jar)
• old towels
• masking tape
• a base container

I used Bill’s grandmom’s 6-gallon fermenting crock for my base, but an old wooden barrel or upright box would work great too.

1. I placed the Mason jar, filled with water, in the center of the crock.
2. I surrounded the water jar with 3-4 old towels, to keep it centered and cushion the blow if the tree took a tumble.
3. Then I laid down strips of masking tape in X’s around the base of the tree, attached to the rim of the crock.
4. Finally I arranged another old towel (but it could be a pretty piece of fabric too or even an odd piece of clothing) to cover the tape.

But I’m not saying you need to go full-blown Charlie Brown to keep it simple with the tree this year. Instead, consider doing a simple theme of all homemade ornaments or dried forage items, like dried oranges and berries and pinecones. If nothing else, consider not pulling out all the usual boxes of typical ornaments. Make this year’s tree different in some way, more simple.

Of course I realize, full well, that “simple” almost never means “easier.” I talk more about how my Charlie Brown tree was more complicated, in some ways, than my typical tree in my podcast episode on this same topic… I link to it below (or you can always find all the podcast info on the “podcast” tab from any page of this blog).

 

4. Keep it Real (but artificial is okay too)

While we foraged most of our decorations this year, I’m a big fan of combining some artificial pieces with the real items.

1. Over mantles

On our one mantle this year, the one that is over our wood stove (which is constantly hot, as our primary source of heat in this old farmhouse), I just placed a little artificial greenery, buffalo plaid ribbon and wooden beads. We started with real pine branches there, but they were dead and brown in days, which is a fire hazard there, since our wood stove that sits directly under that mantle runs hot 24/7. If a dry, brittle tree branch fell on it, well let’s just say we don’t want that to happen.

Another mantle was a perfect spot to just drape greenery and lay some dried oranges and pinecones on top. It’s so simple, but so pretty.

Then our kitchen mantle was the one we spent the most time on, with a long swag of evergreen pieces we tied together with twine then added dried orange slices and pinecones, each tied on with twine.

2. In baskets

In baskets, I added some artificial holly and berries among the real evergreen clippings. A few ornaments and pinecones were nice finishing touches.

3. On wreaths

Our advent wreath is primarily artificial. That makes it nice and easy to move on and off our kitchen table, but I wanted it to have the same look as the rest of our decorations, and look like I had foraged it from nature too, so I stuck pine branches, pinecones, and dehydrated oranges around the artificial base to make the artificial look more all-natural.

I also added some evergreen clippings to our artificial red berry wreath that we hung on the inside side of our front door, to decorate our carriage house area.

 

 

5. Make Things with the Kids

Kayla was telling me as we walked the woods to find grapevines how she remembered watching me twist and form wreaths from bendable twigs as a kid and found it magical. To see her then having a ball when we returned to the house, twisting her own wreaths, with our “loot” of evergreen and vines surrounding her, was pretty special. So what are some great items to make with the kids for simple farmhouse Christmas decorations?

• salt dough ornaments
• cinnamon salt dough ornaments
• salt dough and twine garlands
• dried fruit
• a garland of letters

The letter garland

We used adhesive light interfacing , covered in burlap, to cut out letters then strung them on twine, spelling out “Come Let Us Adore Him.”

Since I’m writing this in 2020, a year none of us who have lived through it will ever forget, a year of separation and fear and confusion caused by a worldwide pandemic, I feel like our little garland was perfectly hung over our simple, bare tree. You see, the meek tree and the simple words are a constant reminder of who we need to be truly focused on. Not fancy decorations or the fear around us, but Christ. Always Christ.

The dried citrus slices

We dry citrus slices in our dehydrator that happens to double as an air fryer (gosh I love this appliance!). Slice the fruit thin and cook on dehydrator trays at 140 degrees for 6-8 hours.

Other directions

You can find directions for the other ideas listed here in this article.

 

6. Find Unexpected Decorations

I had two empty coffee table that it took me a week to decide something to put there. I finally spent a few minutes scouring the barn attic, and immediately knew I wanted to use two of my grandmom’s old enamelware.

First there was my grandmom’s serving tray. It has this eye-popping red rim that I knew I wanted to use to decorate. It of course had a non-Christmas design on it… a flower cart… so I brought down an armload of possibilities of pottery pieces, wooden bowls and candle holders to decide what I wanted to display on the tray to mask the flower cart. A few pails filled with greenery and some scattered pine cones did the trick.

Then I have this enamel baking dish of my grandmom’s. The green trim is perfect for Christmas. I just laid greenery, pinecones and ornaments inside. If you’re putting it near a electrical outlet a strand of lights would be nice too. Then I remembered a sweet pottery poinsettia a daughter made me one year, added a candle, and I can’t tell you how much I love this centerpiece. I smile every time I look at it.

But my point is, you may have the perfect items for decorating in a box in the corner of your basement and not even know it because it’s not what you typically think of as “Christmas.”

But I bet you’ll have more joy looking at those items for the 6 weeks of Christmas than you’d ever have from the same-old-same-old decorations you put out every year or the new thing you grab at Hobby Lobby that doesn’t have any sentimental meaning to you.

Whether you take one or all of these tips to heart, I hope you find a few ways to truly have a simple farmhouse Christmas, even if you live in a condo in the city and even though we all know that Simple Doesn’t Mean Easy.

 

 

—- If you are inspired by any suggestions here, please share on social media with the hashtags #SimpleChristmas and #SimpleDoesntMeanEasy and tag me so I can share your gorgeous decorations too! —-

 

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Other Christmas articles you’ll like:

More Simple Christmas Decorating

Surviving the holidays when you’re burdened with grief or depression

Your Nativity Scene is Missing a Few Things

How to Make a Gingerbread Farmhouse

 

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