The most gorgeous Christmas decorations on the high street

| Nov 16, 2018

You probably have tonnes of ancient Christmas decorations up in the attic, the same ones you use every year. But it's nice to add to the collection with something new.

For some of us, interior decorating only means decking the halls at Christmas. For an increasing number of others, interior design has become a way of life. Instead of limiting the house adorning to the festive season, we decorate for Easter, Halloween, birthdays (of course) and anything else in between. But even if you are a Christmas ONLY type of decorator, you'll likely have caught the 'tasteful' decorating bug, as plugged by department stores and magazines.

Me? I'm the type who will unabashedly reuse the most colourful tree lights for as long as the electrics hang on. I use decorations we bought in the pound shop. If my house looks like a Santa's Grotto from 1992, that's a good thing. But that's at home home. In the hovel I call home in the Durty Ole Town, I disguise the awfulness of the place with classy Christmas decorations. Bronze, artful stars; elegant winter-themed prints; crystal icicles; scented candles that smell like turf fires. My place looks like a festive hygge fantasy. All of my decorations come from the Euro Shop and Penneys and Dealz, of course; tasteful decorations are available everywhere now, not just from lovely places like Brown Thomas or the Powerscourt Centre (although I have included decorations from nice places because I couldn't not).

If you want to de-tackify your home and replace your tinsel and flashy lights with sprigs of fake festive branches and dim but atmospheric white lights, you can go down the high street and re-formulate your Christmas decoration plan for well under €100. I'll be picking up some bits and pieces because there's a new damp patch on my wall that I'll need to cover. But I'll bask in the traditional tackiness of my home. And when I go back for Christmas, I'll feel more at home there, in that state, than anywhere else in the world.