Stylish Christmas Home Decor for Your Apartment

You know what the best part is about finally living in an apartment alone? The Christmas home decor is all up to you!

No disrespect to my mother or my other roommates, but it was pretty fun to finally be able to decorate my apartment exactly with the Christmas home decor that I wanted. The ornaments, the tree, the special little touches…you name it, I could pick it out — all by myself! I know this will eventually change once I move in with a significant other, but for now, I’m enjoying decorating while solo. 

The only downside to decorating a space all alone? Starting from scratch. Yikes. Here are a few things I did to make decorating my small apartment for Christmas for the first time a little less painful!
 

Don’t Have a Mantel? Improvise. 

Unfortunately, I don’t have a fireplace or mantel in my space, so hanging up my Christmas home decor like stockings was a little out of the question. However, I made my TV area a lot cozier by throwing a few throw pillows underneath of my TV console and playing a fireplace clip on Netflix. Trust me, when you’re sipping on hot cocoa with loved ones in your space, that trusty Netflix fireplace clip will make you feel a lot warmer! 

Find A Color Scheme That Works With Your Existing Decor

As much as I love red and green, since I already have a ton of gold accents in my apartment, I opted for a sleek gold, white and silver theme for my Christmas home decor. Since my living room is more on the neutral side, I didn’t want to overwhelm my space with too many holiday colors coming through! Don’t feel the need to go for red, green or gold decor, either: blue is also a super chic option for Christmas accents as well! 

Pencil Trees Are The Way To Go

I really don’t have a ton of space in my living room, so that’s why I opted for a pencil tree. I might not have a lot of width in my apartment, but I do have super high ceilings and fabulous vertical space to work with! The tree you see here is pre-lit and stands at 6.5 feet tall. Since I have a lofted apartment, I personally think I could have picked a tree that was a little taller, but this was a pretty solid choice for a first tree. 

Faux Tree? Get The Smell of a Real Tree with Candles

Every year growing up, my mom and I would pick out a real tree in our house. My favorite thing about the tree was the smell: nothing can beat the scent of good Fraiser Fur!

Now that I live in a smaller apartment on my own, a real tree isn’t feasible for my lifestyle. I’m on the go a lot, so I wouldn’t be able to water it enough, and it’s a little tricky for me to lug a real tree throughout the city without a car (I’d have to carry a real tree about 8 city blocks if I wanted to get it in my apartment!)

I worked at a boutique in college that sold Thymes Fraiser Fur Candles, and I was instantly hooked. As soon as I smelled one of the candles at work, I knew I had to scoop up one of my own. It smells exactly like a real tree! I bought the smaller candle the first year I bought it, and it ran out about two weeks after I purchased it. Whoops. Now every year for the past four years, it’s been a little tradition for me to buy a Thymes Fraiser Fur Candle (or two!) for my apartment. Trust me, even your roommates will love these candles as well, and I give them out as stocking stuffers to almost all of my girlfriends at this point. 

Do you live in a small space? How do you decorate for the holidays?

Thank you to Thymes for kindly sponsoring this Christmas home decor post. All opinions are 100% honest & completely my own.

Photos by Tom McGovern