Ronald here, and I’m the guy who decorates his entry before anything else each December. Then I step back outside, shut the door and walk in again like a guest who’s never seen the place. Only after that does a single garland go up in any other room.
If anybody caught me doing it, they’d have questions. I’ve made my peace with that.
The habit has a backstory. It involves a gold reindeer, too many blue lights and 1 very crowded December.
Quick housekeeping before the story. Ronald E. Marsh is the byline I picked for this blog, a pen name, and the only person using it is me. Nobody has ever paid me to plan an event, and I’m not an event planner of any kind. I’m a guy who got holiday decorating wrong, read until I understood why, and never quite stopped reading.
The Christmas My Shelves Turned Into a Clearance Aisle
In the run-up to Christmas I bought decor the way you grab gum at the register. A plaid throw, because it was soft. A bag of silver snowflakes, because they were marked down. A gold reindeer, because it caught the light. A few strings of blue lights, because why not.
Each piece came home and went straight onto whatever surface was free. The bookshelf. The windowsill. Every shelf, every ledge, every side table. By mid-December nothing flat was left uncovered.
And the whole place looked like a clearance aisle. Not festive. Not cozy. Just busy, in 4 colors that had never been introduced to each other.
That was the snag, and I couldn’t fix it by adding more, which was the only move I knew. So I started reading: decorating guides, stylists’ notes, long threads from people stuck in the same glittery mess.
The answer was almost boring. Gather the decor in 3 or 4 spots people actually look at, like the entry, the table and 1 window. Repeat a few colors in each of those spots. Leave some surfaces bare on purpose, so the decorated ones get noticed.
I packed up nearly everything I’d bought. The reindeer stayed. Everything I’ve read since, about wreaths, tables, mantels and the rooms around them, landed here.
How I Decorate Now (Mostly Restraint)
The entry goes first. It’s the first thing a guest sees and the last thing they pass on the way out, so it gets the best piece.
Then comes the walk-in. I go back out, open the front door slowly and look the way a guest would. What do I see first? Where does my eye go next? If the answer is a pile of mail, that’s the next job, not another wreath.
The table comes second, 1 window third. That’s usually where I stop.
Colors get chosen before anything gets bought: 2 or 3, repeated in every spot, so the entry and the table look like they belong to the same home. The blue lights, sadly, didn’t make the cut.
And some shelves stay empty. Took me a while to believe this one. A bare surface beside a decorated one makes the decorated one look like you meant it.
Small Confessions From the Entry Table
- The gold reindeer is the only piece that survived the big sort. It stands on the entry table every December, and it’s always the first thing I unpack.
- Before I save a holiday decorating idea, I add up what it would cost me in new pieces. A “simple” mantel that needs 9 things I don’t own isn’t simple. The total comes first, the pin second.
- Holiday decor lists with 40 “must-haves” make me want to lie down on the floor. Nobody must have 40 of anything, except maybe cookies.
- The silver snowflakes went into a box I labeled “maybe”. I haven’t opened it since, which probably answers the question.
Where the Wreaths and the Bookshelves Live
Seasonal Decor follows the calendar. Fall brings wreaths you can buy or make for the front door and a rustic Thanksgiving table pulled together from natural, vintage and thrifted pieces. December brings Christmas kitchen ideas for anyone who spends the holidays near the stove, plus a winter tablescape built on cabin textiles. Spring gets entryway ideas, and you can guess I have feelings about those. Summer gets backyard party ideas and kitchen touches for warm weather.
Room Decor handles the months between holidays. Bookshelves styled without buying a new library. Ginger jars used 10 different ways. Coastal decor that leans on color and texture, no seaside address required. Kitchen updates that stop short of a remodel, plus step-by-step guides to recovering a bar stool and adding wall sconces, put together from makers’ instructions and well-reviewed how-tos.
Wanting a home to feel festive, with no clue how to get it there, comes up often in decorating forums. If that’s you, start at the entry. Seriously.
What Happens Before a Post Goes Up
Every post here begins life as a rough draft from AI. The topics come from watching what people look up in search and stash on their Pinterest boards each season, which is why mantels pile up in November.
Then that draft gets my full read, top line to sign-off, before it goes live. There’s no second reader. Along the way I fix whatever’s wrong or muddy: a step out of place, a vague claim, a paragraph that circles back on itself.
Where a post points you toward buying something, wine barrel chandeliers or custom window treatments for an odd window, every spec and price gets compared with the listing it was copied from. If the listing says 36 inches across, the post should too.
The pictures inside posts are AI-made illustrations of a decor idea, a party or a gift. They aren’t snapshots of a real party or of anyone’s actual room. Should a picture another person shared ever appear, it’ll show their @handle and link to their original post.
Mistakes slip through. When a reader spots one, or a price moves once a post has gone live, I fix it. No calendar for that, just your note and my edit. Write to [email protected].
A fair number of the products I mention are linked on Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Your price stays the same either way.
For the longer version of all this, there’s the Editorial Policy, while the AI Content Disclosure spells out where AI fits.
Tell Me About Your Entry
If an idea here worked for you, or flopped, I’d honestly like to hear it. Use the contact page to tell me what’s sitting by your front door right now.
Pick your 3 spots. Choose your colors. Leave a shelf bare.
And if you happen to own a gold reindeer, you know where it goes.
