1. Dress A Handrail
Often the first thing guests see when they step in through the front door, the stairs offer up an opportunity to set the tone for your decorating scheme and introduce a little personality, too.
2. Hang Paper Decorations
Stylish and sustainable, paper decorations are big news this season, and while we love traditional chains, reworked honeycombs, balls and pendants hanging from your staircase will add a contemporary twist to any Christmas hallway decor idea.
3. Channel A Nordic Christmas With Traditional Red And White
Dreaming of a white Christmas? Make it a partial reality by crafting a Scandinavian scheme for your staircase ideas – and embracing an enduring combination of crisp whites and ruby reds.
4. Get Ready For Santa With Stockings
Stockings may be a staple of Christmas fireplace ideas, but the mantel isn’t the only part of the home where Santa can drop off presents. Create a wholesome family feeling by lining up a stocking for each member of the household, and hanging them along the staircase balustrade. Pair them with a garland wrapped around the handrail, and choose stockings that fit in with color scheme of your other decor details. In this example, rustic wool stockings are paired with spindly twigs and dried cotton stems for wintry look with soft interludes.
5. Fill Your Stairway With Wintry Scents
If you’re wondering how to make a Christmas garland for a staircase, remember to appeal to as many senses as you can. Consider using organic scented elements – and Christmas foliage ideas – in your decorative designs, building on fresh pine branches with a wider array of festive aromas.
6. Make Florals Festive
Fresh flowers may not be the first things you think about when it comes to Christmas garland ideas, but bountiful blooms can still have their place among the pine cones and holly. The contemporary Christmas staircase decor in this home features a fabulous floral arrangement at the foot of the banister, which is festooned with winter blooms including chrysanthemums, roses and dahlias in warming shades of pink and orange, as well as foliage including growing festive favorite eucalyptus.
7. Add A Twinkle Or Two With Fairy Lights
‘One of the most dramatic places to warm your home for the holidays is your staircase,’ says Samantha Candela, Christmas merchant at Grandin Road. ‘Light the way to visions of sugarplums by draping the banister with a realistic, pre-lit faux garland.’
8. Go Big
Christmas is not the time to be shy and retiring. For a decor scheme filled with full-on glamor, choose larger than life staircase decor that makes a real statement as soon as guests enter your home. In this narrow hallway, the party gets off to a shimmering start with oversized helium balloons in metallic shades and glittering textures, while the staircase itself sports a substantial garland made from gold painted leaves, trailed by high-shine silver paper chains.
9. Lead The Way With Wreaths
‘Traditionally, we think of wreaths for front doors but this year you could use it on the Christmas dining room table as a centerpiece or on the wall as a festive focal point,’ says Meaghan Hunter, senior stylist and art director at Neptune.
10. Create A Scheme That Embraces The Whole Hallway
Ensuring your staircase looks tip-top may be a big part of your festive hall or entrance but it isn’t the only aspect of the space you can decorate. If your staircase is part of an entrance hall, it’s especially important to create an immersive and warm welcome for your guests by tying in your staircase garland with the likes of your door, walls and any seating areas.
11. Get Crafty With Style-Forward Paper Chains
Setting aside time to make your own Christmas decorations can become a holiday event that is just as fun and memorable as the festivities themselves. Paper chains are perhaps the easiest festive decorations to make, meaning they are great for getting crafting with the kids. They can also provide a real punch of pattern when used as a staircase garland, as showcased in this example where layers of paper chains made from patterns strips of paper in different colors create a standout look.
12. Delight On Christmas Morning With A Present Pile
There are few greater joys than coming down the stairs on Christmas morning to find that Santa has paid you a visit. A delight for kids both big and small, start the sense of wonder early by placing a pile of presents at the bottom of the staircase. Split the gift haul between the stairs and the tree to create an unexpected surprise – it’ll make for a delightful start to the day, and will last as a decorative addition until present-opening-time.
13. Keep It Contemporary
It’s important to choose a palette that compliments your existing decor when decorating stairs for any holiday, but particularly at Christmas where bright and bold is the expectation. In this minimalist hallway, the owners have skipped traditional red, green and gold in favor of a monochrome color scheme more in keeping with their contemporary style.
14. Make A Statement With Jewel Tones
If you’ve no room for a tree, or just fancy displaying your favorite ornaments in a different way this year, string them onto the colorful ribbon and hang them from stair spindles, or incorporate them into a greenery-filled garland. In the same way, you would when planning your Christmas tree ideas, mix and match baubles shapes and sizes, but stick to a coordinated color scheme.
15. Step It Up With Faux Candles
Part of the staircase that’s often ignored is the steps themselves, however, integrating them into your decorating will add dimension; positioning curated displays on steps from eye level will draw the eye upwards, giving the appearance of a complete Christmas scheme… even if upstairs is lacking a little on the decoration front!
16. Try Something Different
There’s nothing like seasonal greenery in abundance to make a spectacle of a stairway at Christmas and, while it may be the most popular, a stair garland isn’t the only way to display it; hanging hand-tied bouquets along the wall makes for a stylish alternative to your standard Christmas foliage ideas.
17. Keep It Simple
While a full garland strung along a banister looks beautiful, it’s not necessarily the most practical. You could move the whole thing down to the base of the stairs, leaving the banister clear, or alternatively, group little pockets of greenery to leave gaps for hands as people go up and down. It may not be as ornate, but it’s just as beautiful.
18. Create A Light Show
If you’ve got a large pendant or statement chandelier hanging in your stairwell, it’s a good idea to incorporate it into your Christmas decor – you don’t want it competing it for the decorative limelight, if it’s as beautiful as this chandelier, chances are it’ll win!