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Source: Senior Lifestyle | https://www.seniorlifestyle.com/resources/blog/christmas-decorating-ideas-for-small-senior-spaces/
Downsizing your home doesn’t mean you have to downsize your holiday spirit and your love of decorating for the holidays. There are no limits to the ways you can showcase your holiday spirit in your apartment or your new senior community quarters. These ideas can also be adapted to caregivers who want to help a senior friend enjoy the holidays.
Here are some Christmas decorating ideas for small spaces and ideas for incorporating the familiar senses of holidays into your holiday decor. Many of these ideas can be adapted for other holidays and observances, too.
Keeping Holiday Traditions After You’ve Downsized
The holidays are a good time to connect with new friends and reflect on memories from holidays passed.
Consider displaying items in your apartment that help you feel connected to family and friends this time of year:
- Cherished family holiday ornaments arranged in a bowl
- Framed photos of friends and family from past holiday gatherings
- Holiday greeting cards and books you’ve collected over the years
- Your children’s baby shoes or other meaningful items you have tucked away
How to Decorate a Small Living Room for the Holidays
Gift Wrap Empty Boxes
Gift wrapped boxes are an inexpensive way to add color and cheer to your apartment. Stack varying sizes of wrapped boxes in a corner that needs brightening or display a few small ones on a side table.
No one but you will know whether they are empty boxes or contain actual gifts. It’s an inexpensive and effective way to add colorful holiday cheer to your room.
Add Holiday-Themed Sundries
You don’t have to have a lot of room to decorate for the holidays. Here’s some items you might display:
- Cozy, holiday-themed pillows and blankets
- Holiday-themed curios on table surfaces
- Imitation or real apartment Christmas tree sized for tabletop or floor
- Nativity creche
- Poinsettia plants
- Small string of battery-operated fairy lights inside a clear glass vase
- Stockings or ornaments on the mantle or branches of a small tree
- Tablecloths or swathes of festive-colored fabrics draped on side tables
- Wreaths temporarily in the place of framed wall items
Deck Your Apartment Entry Door
Decorating the entrance door to your apartment is a welcoming way to show your festive side to others and to help get you in the holiday spirit as you come and go.
Here’s a few Christmas decorating ideas for your apartment door:
- Add a “Happy New Year” message to your door
- Fasten twigs of holly or mistletoe
- Gift wrap your door to look like a present
- Hang a wreath
- Mount a Christmas stocking or two
- Place a holiday-themed mural on your door
- Put an evergreen garland around the doorframe
- String lights around the frame that are powered by a small battery pack
- Tape holiday greeting cards old or new to your door
Highlight the Holiday Senses With Your Decorations
When you think about it, holiday memories are frequently woven from a cloth of all the five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste and smell.
Here are some ideas that fit your senses.
Decorate With Familiar Holiday Scents
Scents like pine, gingerbread, vanilla and baking cookies can go a long way toward adding holiday ambience to your decor.
- Purchase candles that emit holiday scents even when they’re not lit
- Use room sprays with familiar holiday scents
Be sure to not light candles until you know if it’s allowed in your apartment space.
Decorate With Familiar Holiday Sounds
Add holiday music to your room to complement your holiday style. Even a windup Santa, ornament or teddy bear that plays a Christmas tune, or a battery-operated musical holiday decoration can enrich your small apartment home.
Sing a favorite Christmas carol or invite your friends in to sing along with you.
Decorate With Familiar Holiday Tastes
Adding edible treats to your decor is an inexpensive, sweet way to inspire holiday cheer and to make guests feel welcome.
- Candy – Add a selection of holiday candy to an open dish or a lidded crystal candy dish. Here’s a sampling of traditional holiday candies you could use:
- Foil-wrapped Santa-shaped chocolates
- Gold- or silver-wrapped chocolate coins
- Individually wrapped candy canes
- Multicolored ribbon candy
- Peanut brittle
- Red and white starlight hard candy mints
- Holiday-Themed Containers – Fill a holiday-themed box, tin or any container with any of these items:
- Candy
- Fruitcake
- Plain or flavored popcorn
- Store-bought or homemade cookies
- Libations – Display a bottle of wine if you partake or a bottle of non-alcoholic champagne on a table. Then, place a few empty plastic or glass wine glasses next to it and you’re ready to toast the holidays or ring in the new year. If you have a small silver or a holiday tray, you might consider displaying the lot on that.
How to Dress for the Holidays
When you’re limited on space in your apartment, you can add to its holiday ambience by donning holiday-themed wear this time of year.
Plus, you can wear your holiday spirit when you’re dining in or attending holiday events with friends and neighbors.
Here’s a few wearable ideas to show your holiday spirit:
- Applique sweatshirts and sweaters in holiday colors
- Colorful holiday socks
- Dangly holiday-themed earrings and necklaces
- Holiday-themed neckties
- Loudly patterned holiday slacks
- Santa hats
- Sparkling brooches or pins
Hanukkah Decorating Ideas
Light up the holiday with decorations in traditional Hanukkah colors of white or silver and blue. Today, silver is commonly used in place of traditional white. Hanukkah-themed decorations are readily available today. Here are some ideas to add the Hanukkah festival to your apartment home.
Dreidel
There’s perhaps nothing like a dreidel’s four-sided top to bring back memories of this popular Jewish children’s game you may have played as a child.
Opt for a simple wooden dreidel or a sparkling crystal dreidel to brighten your room.
Foil-Wrapped Chocolate Coins
Hanukkah gelt means “Hanukkah money” in Hebrew and Yiddish. Display this traditional Hanukkah children’s gift that’s wrapped in silver or gold foil in open dishes or alongside a dreidel.
Holiday Light Strings
Decorate your entrance door or the inside of your apartment with strings of sparkling lights in traditional white and shades of blue.
Consider buying strings with individual lights covered by shapes such as dreidels and the Star of David. For your door, consider purchasing string lights that have a small, battery-operated power supply.
Menorah
Add a festive table top menorah to your apartment decor. If you already have one, it’s a great time of year to display this centerpiece of Hanukkah. They are available in an array of finishes, decorative styles and sizes.
Menorahs available with battery-operated, imitation candles can help you safely recognize each day the Temple lantern blazed. You could also display unlit wax candles in each candle cup. White is the traditional candle color.
Be sure to check that candle burning is allowed in your apartment if you’re thinking about burning them.
Find Comfort and Fulfillment at Senior Lifestyle Communities
If you’re looking for a comforting, secure living atmosphere, consider Senior Lifestyle. We help seniors and their families live with ease, while creating a vibrant and healthy lifestyle for our residents. Many of our communities are also pet-friendly.
Source: Senior Lifestyle | https://www.seniorlifestyle.com/resources/blog/christmas-decorating-ideas-for-small-senior-spaces/