A Quick Trip to Christmas

My six design takeaways from the Anthropologie Holiday House

It should come as no shock to you, dear reader, that I love Christmas. What I do not love, is celebrating the season too soon. I am a firm “post-Thanksgiving” decorator. A wreath, a mellow woodland garland—fine. But you won’t see my fully decorated tree up while you’re eating turkey on my Spode plates.

So you can imagine my internal conflict when I realized that the annual Anthropologie Holiday House was scheduled for its incredibly limited run from September 17th to September 22nd. Not to be annoying but that is technically still summer. I do understand though, the Holiday House is meant to inspire, to get people buying holiday decor and hosting supplies in advance.

The townhouse (currently listed for 14 million) was on the Upper West Side this year, which was incredibly exciting and convenient for me. So in 78 degree weather, I wore a light green coat, shorts, and espadrilles (it worked, trust me), and mentally prepared to get in the holiday spirit, temporarily.

I wanted to share some of the things that caught my eye. My biggest takeaway from the Holiday House? Kitschy, bright, colorful, magic, over the top Christmas decor is back baby. Enough with the neutrals, enough with the minimal, beige, sad vibes. I want to see a throw-up of color and joy!

This is absolutely not a sponsored post, though quite frankly, it should be! Anthro— my inbox is open.

shannon.d.lange

A post shared by @shannon.d.lange

Six design ideas to steal from the Holiday House:

1. Make your house a forest

   There is no rule that says you only get one tree at Christmas. In fact? I’ve always felt that you should have a few! One can be more formal, one can be retro, and I have seen people work a third in that’s more like the “kid’s tree” with sentimental/homemade ornaments. Faux trees come in all shapes and sizes, and grouped together they can be so impactful in a space. But one thing was abundantly clear in the Holiday House— the more the merrier!

2. Pink

   I have always been a fan of pink for holiday decorations. I love it mixed with red, and something about pink screams land of sweets and childlike wonder to me. The Holiday House had bows, lanterns, garlands, lights all in gorgeous pink hues. When done correctly, it feels like Alice in Wonderland or Eloise all grown up and utterly fabulous. It’s warm, it’s happy, it’s festive, and it makes me want to put on a party dress and have a cosmo.

3. Layered garland

   I was so inspired by the garland all around the Holiday House displays. Tinsel, ribbon, colored string lights— the way they wove a ton of different elements together really got my wheels turning. I especially loved some of their mantle and bannister displays.

4. Tiny fairy lights

   I get very persnickety when it comes to lighting which most people know by now. Not to be dramatic, but when Christmas became very LED heavy in the mid 2000s, it felt like the true marker of Christmas magic dimming. I need incandescent, I need warm, I need whites that don’t read blue! So I was very pleased to see a lot of itty bitty fairy lights in exactly the right color, all over the place. Under trees, on trees, spilling out of faux fireplaces! I loved the way they flickered too and because the actual lights were so tiny, it felt more like a subtle sparkle versus a Disneyland light show.

5. Celestial woods

   One of the most underrated holiday decor motifs in my opinion is winter solstice magic. There was one room in the holiday house that was so dreamy, so magical woodland forest, so cozy, I could have curled up and stayed for hours. There were strands of gold stars wrapped on everything, there was a Hanukkah section that had the most beautiful woodland menorah and blue ribbon tree. Funky birds, gold hearts, dripping garland and candle displays; it’s mature and magical. Both whimsical and sophisticated. I was feverishly taking notes!

6. Retro warmth

   We will talk about my tree in painful detail later in the year, but I decided that going colorful retro was something I craved after many years of a white and gold tree. At this time, I don’t have a house that can fit the forest of trees I desire. When I do though, don’t worry, there will be room for all of my personalities. For now, I’m really leaning into this bright, poppy, kitschy aesthetic. It’s the big colorful bulbs from childhood, it’s the little village I want to start, it’s a train going around the base of the tree, it’s tinsel and bows and more more more! It was done so well in the Holiday House it didn’t feel dated in the slightest. I can’t wait to try and replicate this year in my own Holiday House.

   Well, I’ll be honest. Collecting all those links was absolute torture for me. I wanted every single thing I saw, and I had take a deep breath and calm down after seeing The Met x Anthropologie collection. I need the wine glasses so bad I could scream. Might have to do a separate post about that…

   Until then!