Vintage Christmas Home Tour

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Do you love vintage? Secondhand items? Maybe you have a stash, but don’t know what to do with all of it. I’m sharing how I decorate our house for Christmas using all of my vintage home decor goodies. I hope you love the inspiration!

I don’t do a lot of seasonal decorating, as far as completely changing out decorations, but Christmas is the exception! Every year, I think that I’m going to scale back a bit, but then I get all the tubs of decorations out and I just can’t! Although, I think that I do a lot, but then I see what other bloggers and influencers are doing and my decorating seems to pale in comparison. I’ll stick with what I’m doing, though, as I can’t imagine doing more!

Have you ever been on a Christmas tour of homes? Maybe your town puts one on as a fundraising event or as a ladies’ night activity. I was asked to be on our town’s tour of homes this year, but I just wasn’t quite in the right frame of mind for it. Plus, when I do it, I want to be able to decorate our basement too, but it’s still very much a work in progress.

In case you’re not familiar with the concept of a Christmas tour of homes, select homeowners deck the halls and invite ticket holders in to see what their home looks like all decorated for the holidays. The concept is so fun, because I love getting a birds’ eye view of what people’s homes look like. The Christmas decorations make this even more fun.

I thought I do something similar this year and give you a tour of our home. While I don't go all out, like other people might, I still think that our home looks warm and inviting decorated for Christmas. I use a mix of new and old, store-bought, and thrifted, to create a space that is colorful, memorable, and full of vintage goodness! So, come on in and enjoy the tour!

We have an open concept home, so wall space is at a premium. I’ve had to edit my collections quite a bit since moving to this house, as I don’t have as many spots to display. Our entryway is one spot that I love to use for sharing some of my collections, especially all my Santas at Christmas! My vintage Santa mug collection has been growing over the last few years, so it’s a lot of fun to see them all together in one spot!

I wanted to find a way to display them vertically a bit and found the tiered metal shelf and house shelf in the Dollar Spot at Target. They are perfect for adding height to the display and allowing me to stack more mugs than I could have otherwise.

One of the other standout decorative pieces in our entryway is the tall birdcage filled with vintage mercury glass ornaments. It was a gift from a friend a couple of years ago and is such a statement piece, and a great way to display a lot of ornaments. I did dump all the ornaments out that were in it when she gave it to me, cleaned out a few broken ones, and added them back in so they are evenly distributed by color. It’s one of the pieces that I get the most comments on!

Our fireplace is a far cry from what it looked like when we moved in. There was a lot of dark brown wood in the house, including the fireplace. We had the whole thing painted white and then a “tile” pattern painted on. I’m thinking of painting over the pattern (or maybe the whole fireplace even) in the spring, as I’m ready for a change. Also, the pattern just doesn’t feel like me, so I want to freshen it up to be more to my taste.

The white backdrop does allow my décor to pop, though, so I love that. I added lots of swag garland this year and am obsessed with how it looks! I even made a garland from cotton balls—budget friendly DIYs are my favorite. The mirror on the mantel is one of the first projects I worked on when we moved here. I wanted it to have that Anthropologie Gleaming Primrose Mirror feel—I used a thrift store mirror and Rub ‘N Buff to create the look. You can read all about that project HERE.

The real showstopper(s) on the mantel this year are the vintage ice cream tubs I have the trees displayed in! I’ve gotten so many questions on them, so I had to share! I got them a couple of years ago at an antique shop that was going out of business. My only regret is not buying all of them—they're just so unique and fun! I love the plaid and the pop of green they add to any space. You can shop the mantel HERE.

We get a real tree every year from the same tree farm I’ve been going to almost my whole life. As a blogger, it would be a lot easier to have a fake tree. I would be able to put it up whenever I want, and it would hold the ornaments a lot better. There’s just something so magical about a real tree, though, and the smell just can’t be matched!

I always use my vintage ornaments on our tree, but I like to switch the other elements up every year. A couple of years ago, I used pink feathers that popped out around the tree, in addition to my collection of vintage putz houses. You can find a few more photos from that Christmas HERE. Getting creative with different elements makes it easier to stretch your decorating budget, since you don’t always have to buy something new, but just use it in a new way.

This year, I was blessed by a friend who let me cut a lot (and I mean a lot) of hydrangea blooms from the massive bush in her yard. I got a lot of use out of the cuttings for Fall decorating, but then had the thought that they’d make amazing tree “picks” as well! At first, I wanted to spray paint them a bit, to help them stand out from the tree a bit, but then I got lazy and didn’t get around to it. My laziness finally paid off, though, because I think the natural dried color of the hydrangeas looks nicer with my vintage Christmas ornaments.

Since Jason and I don’t do a lot of presents for each other, and we do a lot of experiences with family members, our tree can look a little bare underneath. I started filling in with décor a few years ago and love how it looks, plus I have an extra spot now to display more of my vintage décor! Every year is a little different, of course, for what I use, but ever since I found my vintage Santa blow mold at a garage sale a few years ago, he has been a staple next to the tree. I think he’s so cheeky and cute and love the extra glow next to the Christmas tree each year! Plus, it makes me extra happy what a great deal I got on him ($5!!!), as I just spotted the same Santa at our local antique mall for $195. Wow!! (You can catch my whole tour of the antique store HERE.)

I don’t remember exactly when I started collecting vintage Christmas decorations, but they are basically meant for me. I love the chippy paint, how they sparkle, and the idea that they all have a special story behind them. I love thinking about who owned them before and the wonderful memories they made using them to decorate their trees and homes. Most of my decorations are Shiny Brites, but there are others too, including Rouch and others made in West Germany and Poland.

Last year I scored an entire box of vintage Christmas ornaments at the thrift store for only $25. When I calculated a rough estimate of them, I think they would probably be worth close to $1500, if I were to have sold them in my booth or on Etsy on Ebay. I was too scared to ship them, though, so I ended up just listing them on Facebook Marketplace. Even with keeping a few of the ornaments for myself, I still quadrupled my money! I have some great tips for selling on Facebook Marketplace HERE and HERE.

Our kitchen doesn’t have a lot of space to decorate, but I do have some corner floating shelves that I love to decorate with my collections, including colored glassware, vintage Pyrex, and seasonal paint by numbers. You can see part of my paint by numbers collection featured on Kelly Elko’s blog. I love putting some of my favorite Shiny Brite ornaments in my colored glassware—it’s all so sparkly! I normally tuck a few bottle brush trees in too—they add some height, a different texture, and color.

I kept our centerpiece super simple this year. I thrifted the white woven plant stand at the Goodwill Outlet a couple of months ago and intended to sell it, but it was perfect for the centerpiece! I also wanted to buy live rosemary plants to go in it, but knew I shouldn’t spend the money, so I searched my décor boxes and had just the right number of fake Christmas trees to fill it! I added in a few vintage Shiny Brite ornaments for sparkle and love how it turned out! I might put a strand of twinkle lights in, if I get some extra energy. (That’s a big “if”...)

Our hallway is always a tough spot to decorate, as the wallpaper is dark and a busy pattern. I love it, but it tends to make things disappear against it. Since it’s a dark spot, it’s perfect for a mirror and, for Christmas, my vintage ceramic Christmas tree—I love the warm glow of the lights!

I recently thrifted the vintage Foreman & Clark hat box and fell in love with the graphics! It’s the perfect way to add a bit of height to the display too.

You need to have a little fun with the bathroom too, right?? I snagged this vintage bust at an estate sale recently for $10! She’s so fun to dress up and looks especially festive with vintage garland as a necklace!

I don’t do a ton of decorating in all the bedrooms in our house, but I do like to put a few things in ours. When I had the picture ledge installed a couple years ago, I knew it was going to be the perfect spot to add seasonal décor. I’ve changed up the look each year, but I always have some sort of a large sign or piece of art, plus lots of bottle brush trees. I realized this year that I seem to use the biggest trees I have on this shelf, so I need to buy some others for the rest of the house.

One of the DIY projects I worked on last year was completely FREE—my favorite kind! I tend to look for frames at the thrift store that have matting. Mats help to elevate whatever art you use them with. I had a bare spot in the corner of our bedroom that I knew needed something. I remembered that I had a small piece of gift-wrapping paper left over and decided to frame it. I love how it turned out and how it pulls colors from our area rug into another space in the room!

I never know what to do with the boxes from my vintage ornaments. They’re too cool to store away during the holiday season, but they also need the perfect spot. I added this bench to our room a couple of weeks ago and it looked so bare underneath. Ta-da! The vintage ornament boxes filled in the space so well. I love that they’re on display but tucked away so they stay safe. I added a couple of holiday pillows on top of the bench to tie the look together.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my vintage home Christmas tour! I love decorating for the holidays, but it is a lot of work. We love having the house decorated but getting to share it with you makes it even more worth it! I hope that I’ve inspired you to take the time to decorate, pull out some older decorations that you’ve found a new way to use, or simply to embrace your love of vintage!

If you’ve read this far, I’d love to know what your favorite part of the tour is! Also, I always enjoy seeing other people’s Christmas decorations. Share a picture of yours in your Instagram stories and tag me when you do! You can find me on Instagram at @hilaryprall.