CHRISTMAS SIMPLICITY

This Massachusetts home showcases Christmas spirit with small touches and bright pops of holiday color.

This Massachusetts home showcases Christmas spirit with small touches and bright pops of holiday color.

Homeowner Jenna Shaughnessy’s favorite thing about her home during Christmas is its mantel. “I have this nice, traditional, simple mantel that I love,” says Jenna. “I have fun with it. It’s the one thing I try to decorate every season.”

The Christmas season may be full of all things merry and bright, but sometimes you don’t want things to be that bright. Blogger Jenna Shaughnessy of Jenna Kate at Home agrees. She takes a more toned-down approach to holiday décor, choosing simple pops of festive color instead of swaths of it. The result is a refreshingly simple take on Christmas cheer.

Jenna and her family live in a 1960s colonial-style home north of Boston that they purchased five years ago. Originally a fixer-upper, the house sat on the market for months before she decided to take a look at it. “I fell in love with it instantly,” she says. “I could see through the dirty walls and old-lady furnishings, and I

knew that with a little TLC, it could be a beauty.”

LOOKING GOOD WITH LESS

After (many) renovations and DIYs, Jenna has filled the home with her clean, simple and uncluttered style. When Christmastime rolls around, Jenna creates an equally uncluttered festive feel.

“My Christmas style is less-is-more,” she says. “I love the traditional Christmas look—but I find it very overwhelming, and I get sick of the red very quickly.”

Instead, Jenna layers in small pops of color in traditional holiday red to create a cohesive Christmas look. In her bedroom, she places a red quilt and throw pillow to give the room a subtle

winter wonderland feel. The blanket ladder in the living room displays a festive throw, and her Christmas tree is dotted with holly berries made from fuzzy pom-poms.

CHRISTMAS CLEANUP

One of the best parts about a less-is-more approach to holiday décor is how easy it is. “For the most part, I like to keep my décor pretty much the same and just layer in really simple things,” Jenna says. That means when January comes around and the Christmas decorations come down, cleanup is easy as can be.

For a beautiful and cohesive set of gifts, choose solid-colored wrapping paper you can embellish with ribbons, sprigs of greenery

and other decorations.

Simple coordinating Christmas ornaments and embellishments keep this Christmas tree clean and bright. Large wire ribbon tied into bows adds to the elegance of the round ornaments.

The mantel sets the stage for holiday celebrations with its dusting of greenery, wooden garlands and stockings.

(top) The blanket ladder in the living room is another way that Jenna brings in a pop of red. The ladder is normally filled with blankets of more neutral tones, but Jenna replaces one of them with a red-and-green plaid blanket that gives the corner a subtle Christmas feeling.

Jenna added floral embellishments to her Christmas tree, which stick out from the tree and give it a full and festive look.