30 Easy Ideas for Cozy Cottage Christmas Decorating

Creating a cozy feel in your home for the holiday season can be easy and fun with simple cottage Christmas decorating ideas.  Add some Christmas spirit and a casual, more festive feel to your holiday decor with over 30 cozy cottage Christmas decorating ideas, straight from our holiday home to yours this Christmas season!

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There is no season that is cozier than Christmas, and to me, cottage Christmas decorating is the best way to bring that cozy feel into a home during the holiday season!  The cottage style allows a lot of room for interpretation but at the heart of it, cottage Christmas decor is simple, comfortable, and brings in a touch of whimsy.  Cottage Christmas decorating ideas may also include vintage items that add a feel of nostalgia.

Whether it is with sentimental items or timeless Christmas themes such as nutcrackers, garlands, natural elements, musical instruments, Nativity scenes, and a cozy glow of lights, just to name a few, easy Christmas decor ideas are a trademark of the cottage Christmas decorating style.

Cottage Style Elements for Home Decorating

What is considered cottage decor?

​​Most commonly, cottage home decor is considered to be a combination of French vintage, a little bit of a rustic feel, and often a touch of shabby chic.  Weathered textures, white paint, vintage items, layers of pattern and texture, and a lived-in look are easy ways to recognize the interior design “cottage style”.

While I tend to shy away from feeling like I need to define my decor style, I definitely have a strong dose of the cottage home decor style in our home.  No matter what trends come and go, these cottage decor elements have been part of my decor since the first home I bought with my husband in 2003!

Here are a few of my favorite ways to bring the cottage style into our home:

• Cozy layers
• Vintage accents
• Use of natural elements and things from nature
• Decor with sentimental value
• Mix of patterns
• Include lots of textures appropriate for the season
• Slipcovered furniture

How do you make a cozy Christmas home?

​Christmas is the coziest time of the year and it’s the perfect time to pull out all the stops to make your home feel as lovely as it looks with your cottage Christmas decorating ideas!  It brings me so much joy when the sights, sounds, and scents of the season all combine to make our home feel special.  After all, is there a more favourite place to be than home for the holidays?!​

To bring the cottage Christmas decorating look to our home, I like to start by focusing on a theme.  Over on THIS blog post, you can find more ideas about how I come up with a theme for our cottage Christmas decorating and then incorporate it throughout our Christmas decorations and living spaces.

Past year themes have included some favorites, such as “Good Tidings” and the story of the Nutcracker.  Even though the theme is loosely woven throughout our cottage Christmas decorating ideas, it is fun to come up with fun ways to represent the theme concept.  Of course, I’m an early childhood teacher, so of course I love a good theme!  Haha!

Included with our Christmas decor theme, there are classic cottage Christmas decorating elements that are always a focus.  I use a lot of greenery and candlelight as the foundation of my cottage Christmas decor.  A combination of faux trees, fresh greenery, branches, and garlands are the first thing I add.

Then, I think through all of the places where I can add cozy flameless candles.  I love using THESE flameless taper candles because they are on a timer and the cozy glow just flickers on each late afternoon and stays for the evening!  In addition to the traditional lights on the Christmas trees around our home, I like to add fairy twinkle lights, also on timers.

To further add to the cottage Christmas decorating style, I like to bring out sentimental items that we decorate with each year, such as our family travel ornaments, our favorite Santa mugs for hot cocoa, our DIY Advent boxes, and other collections I’ve built over the years.

Layered fabrics such as fur, velvet, and knit continue to add to the cozy cottage Christmas decorating style.  I love neutral colors, so I really enjoy adding some warm, rich tones to the whites and neutral colors that we have year round throughout our home.

However, if you love color, the cottage Christmas decorating style definitely allows for a lot of color mixed with pattern too.  You can choose either a mostly neutral, rich color palette or enjoy the more festive traditional colors of the season too!

The last main thing I focus on is a favorite Christmas scent.  There is nothing like a beautiful scent to make a home feel cozy and festive!  THIS is my favorite Christmas candle and diffuser to use for the holiday season.

30 Easy Ideas for Cozy Cottage Christmas Decorating

Cozy Cottage Christmas Decorating #1: Use your non-seasonal vintage items for decorating

An inexpensive way to create cozy cottage Christmas decorating is to use your existing decor as a base for your Christmas decor items.  Since vintage items or vintage-style decor pieces are an important element of the cottage decor style, look for ways to use your favorite vintage items as part of your Christmas decorating.

For example, a vintage concrete pot can make a little tree look amazing while a vintage mirror with a green wreath and ribbon can reflect twinkle lights around the living room.

On my china hutch, I like to add miniature mercury glass ornaments to some of my apothecary bottles.  Even though I use these bottles other times of the year, too, they take on a special look during the Christmas season by adding the little Christmas ornaments!

I also like to take vintage ornaments that I’ve picked up at thrift stores, antique shops, or flea markets and add them to ironstone dishes or pieces from my mortar collection.  The sparkle of the various ornaments makes the china hutch feel festive, even though most of the decor pieces are ones I use year round

Cozy Cottage Christmas Decorating #2: Make an easy centerpiece for the dining table

​Another inexpensive way that you can make the most perfectly cozy cottage Christmas decorating centerpiece for your dining table is to take a vintage pitcher and simply add fresh greenery.  If you don’t have fresh greenery, or you want to invest in some gorgeous stems that look incredibly realistic and you can use year after year, try THESE Norfolk pine stems.  I like to use 5 of the stems for a really full centerpiece.

My favorite ironstone pitcher is my go-to for an easy centerpiece anytime of the year and Christmas is no exception!  By using a vintage or vintage-inspired pitcher or vessel to hold your bit of greenery, you’ll bring even more of the cozy cottage Christmas decorating style to your dining area.

The other great thing about this simple style of centerpiece is that it can quickly and easily be moved for game nights with friends, extra space to spread out cookie baking, or even surface space for gift wrapping!  You can help keep your dining area flexible, practical, and beautiful with a simple greenery centerpiece.

​Cozy Cottage Christmas Decorating #3: Feature a collection of favorite things

​To me, nothing says “cottage Christmas decorating” like a collection of favorite vintage items.  Several years ago, I started collecting old brass French horns at thrift stores, flea markets, antique shops, and even yard sales!  All along, I envisioned a beautiful gallery wall with these classic decor pieces.

Now, my collection is huge and I love displaying these lovely vintage finds throughout our home during the holidays.  I guess you could say that even though my French horn gallery wall takes different forms each year, it is a tradition now and I don’t plan on breaking it anytime soon!

There are many different kinds of Christmas collections, from French horns to ceramic houses to Nativity sets to bottle brush trees and special ornaments.  No matter what your collection is, Christmas is the perfect time to display it in your home.  Especially if you want to lean toward the cottage Christmas decorating style, decor pieces with sentimental value or tradition definitely add to the cozy look!

Cozy Cottage Christmas Decorating #4: Mix woods and whites with lots of character

​One classic element of the cottage decor style is adding a lot of character to your home.  Often, this is done with a mix of wood tones, chippy wood, and white paint.  While you can bring in these elements with character into your cottage Christmas decorating with Christmas decor pieces, you can also use your everyday, year-round pieces to bring in this cozy cottage look.

Furniture is a great way to add chippy character and wood tones into your cottage style home.  For example, my coffee table and mantel in the living room bring so much chippy white paint and touches of wood tones into the space.  No matter the season, the cottage style continues with these furniture pieces that stay year round.

A couple of years ago, we came across this gorgeous apothecary.  Most of the paint is chipped off and it is just the perfect style for our home.  During the Christmas season, it houses our family’s special Nativity set.  However, it is another piece that is “permanent” and stays out year round.  If chippy paint and wood is a trademark of the cottage style, this old apothecary turned console table definitely does the trick for our living room!

Over on THIS post, you can find out how we rescued this old apothecary piece and turned it into a focal point with the perfect place in our dining area.  I have so much fun decorating these open shelves for all of the seasons!

Cozy Cottage Christmas Decorating #5: Create a focal point

​While a focal point is really important in other decorating styles too, it shouldn’t be overlooked in cozy cottage Christmas decorating.  As you’ll see in my cottage Christmas tour later this month, I am definitely not a minimalist when it comes to decorating for any season, much less Christmas.

However, the key to decorating with a lot of pieces for cottage Christmas decorating that doesn’t feel cluttered and overwhelming is to start with a focal point based on your theme.

Then, work your way from that focal point with cohesive colors, patterns, textures, and decor pieces that fit perfectly into your decor aesthetic.

​Whether you have a large home or a small space, the formula of cottage Christmas decorating remains the same.  

1. Choose a theme
2. Create a focal point
3. Build decor from there with a cohesive plan that incorporates many cottage decor style elements

Cozy Cottage Christmas Decorating #6: Shop at thrift stores and antique shops throughout the year

One of the best and most smart shopping tips I can give you for cozy cottage Christmas decorating is to shop all year long.

Thrift stores, antique shops, vintage markets, flea markets, estate sales, and even yard sales can be the best places to find Christmas decor pieces that add the perfect vintage touch to your cottage Christmas decorating.  Some of my favorite Christmas decor pieces are vintage items I’ve picked up here and there over the years.

Pro Tip:  When you patiently shop and only buy what you truly love, you end up curating a timeless collection of cottage Christmas decorating pieces that you enjoy year after year.  

These pieces become part of your Christmas traditions and that is what makes them feel like the perfect, cozy decorative accents for your home during the holiday season.

Other ideas for easy cottage Christmas decorating:

• Put mini trees in vintage crocks
• Add a vintage style mercury glass ornament garland to a mantel or table centerpiece
• Incorporate vintage style bells throughout your decor and vignettes
• Add pine cones to a wooden dough bowl
• Dry orange slices to make a garland
• Use the extra dried oranges for handmade ornaments
• Use a vintage grain sack for a tree skirt
• Add rusty jingle bells to an ironstone dish
• Use wicker baskets as Christmas tree collars
• Put chunky knit throw blankets in wicker baskets for cozy evenings
• Add fairy twinkle lights on a timer for a cozy glow
• Tie velvet blush ribbons on a green wreath (I like THIS frayed ribbon!)
• Add vintage Christmas ornaments to a pretty bowl for an easy centerpiece
• Add layered garland on a mantel or center of the dining room table
• Attach bottle brush trees to chippy wood bases for a simple DIY project\
• Hang a smaller green wreath on the kitchen cabinet doors.  Try adding plaid ribbon for some pattern!
• Hang a garland with wooden beads for a country Christmas tree style
• Layer different textures, such as fur, knit, and wool
• Use a beautiful ticking stripe tree skirt for your Christmas tree
• Browse more cottage Christmas decorating ideas HERE on my storefront!

Decorating our home for the holiday season is one of my favorite things to do.  Some may say it’s “just decor”.  However, I say that when you style your home with cozy comfort in mind for your family and friends, it is an act of love and service to them too.  As the manager of our home, I feel that it is a privilege to get to create space for special moments and memories we can enjoy together throughout the season.

You can browse all of my favorite curated Christmas collections HERE on my storefront, including curated sets of cottage Christmas decorating pieces that you can use to help you create that cottage look and feel in your own home.

While “cottage Christmas decorating” may seem like just another decor style, to me it is really a way of styling a home that feels magical and cozy and full of joy for the Christmas season.

So, thanks for stopping by!  I hope this post gives you some special inspiration and some easy decor ideas you can bring into your own home for the season!  Merry Christmas!

You may also enjoy these Christmas home decor related blog posts:

• 21 Favorite Christmas Decor Ideas for Your Home (2024)
• 10 Easy Tips to Decorate for Thanksgiving and Christmas Early
• Simple Tips for Christmas Coffee Table Decor Ideas
• Easy Ways to Choose a Christmas Theme for Holiday Decorating
• Easy Ideas to Decorate a Cozy Bedroom for Christmas
• Easy Ideas to Decorate a Cozy Bedroom for Christmas
• Easy Ideas to Decorate a Console Table for Christmas
• Simple & Natural French Country Christmas Decor Ideas

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I’d love for you to follow me on social media!  You can find my home decor inspiration on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook!  

Blessings,

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