The holiday season is amongst us and full of cheer! It is always fun to decorate for the holidays and create a festive atmosphere in our homes. There are many ways to spruce up your space for the season. For example, adding a Christmas tree with a variation of lights, ornaments, and tinsel, as well as garland on the fireplace mantle, are all great ways to help make your home feel festive.

Décor can be placed throughout your whole house to help encapsulate the holiday spirit. While traditional Christmas décor can feel uniform and balanced throughout your home, you can always take your décor to the next level. For instance, if you have a neutral color palette home, Christmas décor will really pop. That being said, making your Christmas décor color palette match is essential to help the flow of the atmosphere. To help readers better understand, here are four great seasonal color palettes to consider in your home:

Red, Green, & Gold

This traditional color palette looks great in any setting since red and green are most commonly affiliated with Christmas décor. To spice it up, you can add some gold into the mix to help create a more luxurious feel. You will find that this color palette can be used in a variety of ways. For instance, a green pine tree with all red bulbs will look great with gold lights and tinsel. You can even carry this theme throughout the whole home, making green your primary color, red your secondary, and gold as your accent.

Silver, White, & Blue

Are you looking for an elegant and winter-inspired wonderland? Try using a silver, white, and blue color palette. This light and airy Christmas color palette can make your home feel elegant and beautiful. You can get a white Christmas tree and decorate it with silver and blue. Plus, this dazzling look can be added throughout the whole home. You can add white stockings and snow-inspired décor to create your winter oasis.

Warm, Earthy Tones

Are you not feeling the cold this winter? If so, make your home feel a little bit warmer with this rustic Christmas palette. You can add earthy, warm tones throughout your space while still being festive. The forest green from a real pine tree and garland in your home can be a great start. You can add pine cones and some candles to take a warmer approach on decorating your home.

Eclectic Style

Since Christmas is fun, you can be as creative as you desire! Perhaps you are into all the colors this season has to offer. From the diverse wrapping papers to rainbow-colored lights on the tree, this eclectic styling can be a fun way to decorate as well.

Let your holiday décor feel more uniform by adding a color theme to your space. What colors do you use during the holiday season? Have you tried any of these color themes? Let us know below in the comment section.

The holidays are on the way whether you like it or not. You may have made your annual appointment for the holiday themed family photo and you may have started thinking about what you want to write about in your holiday letter.  Below are a few tips if you want your letter to be entertaining for all of your friends and family instead of just a list of everything you did in 2013.

Be real: Write about what really happened in the past year without sugar coating every event.  It’s much more relatable and interesting for everyone reading it.

Be conversational and funny: Write in first person. Family and friends who receive your holiday letter want to hear from the real you. Forget the big, fancy words; write as you speak.  Remember, this isn’t a formal essay that’s going to be harshly critiqued for a grade. This will bring a breath of fresh air to your readers. Telling a funny story about your youngest is better than bragging about their excellent grades and extracurricular activities.

Know your audience: Know who you are sending your letter to and if it’s personal then send it to your close friends, family, distant relatives, etc.  Your work colleagues may not be the best, especially if they already know about your daily life.  Remember, the whole purpose of writing a holiday letter is to update your readers on what has happened the past year.  Business associates won’t be interested in a chatty, family newsletter, and vice versa, distant cousins won’t care too much about the ins and outs of your workplace politics.

Keep it short and sweet: Hit the highlights of your year and save the ins and outs of summer vacation for personal phone calls or lunches with relatives.

Don’t “photo-bomb”: Sure you want to share your many photos that were taken throughout the year, that’s what Facebook is for, right? Send one or two shots instead of a page filled with tile size pictures.

Personalize: Take a few minutes to personally sign and write a short note at the bottom of your letter.

Overall, have fun with your letter!  If you didn’t want to tackle the entire letter and you have family members, then have each of them write a small paragraph in their own words about their year.  Happy writing!

Happy Holidays to you and all of your loved ones!

Need help cleaning up after all of the holiday celebrating and don’t know where to start?  Here’s some tips that might make the cleanup go smoother this year:

Make a list: Yes, even though Santa has all ready come and gone doesn’t mean you can’t make a list, too.  Decide what tasks need to be accomplished.  After to make your to-do list, you can pick out easier tasks to delegate to the kids.

Family help: Everyone participated in the holiday celebrations, so have everyone pitch in and help with the cleaning.  Assign a couple of chores to each person that way you’re not stuck doing it all.

Dishes:  We know there’s always a lot of cooking and eating during this time of the year.  If you’re doing all of the cooking this year, have others roll up their sleeves and do the dishes.

Paper cleanup: Do you have wrapping paper all over the house now? Make a game out of it and have everyone gather as much paper pieces as possible during a certain time limit.  Whoever has the most pieces of wrapping paper, gets an extra holiday treat.