The Christmas season doesn’t feel truly present until you put up festive decorations. If you’re a student living on campus in the weeks before Winter Break and are missing a pine tree adorned with tinsel, lights and flashy ornaments, don’t worry. Bring the holiday spirit to your dorm with the affordable essentials listed below. All the items can each be purchased at Dollar Tree for $1 and at Walmart for under $20.
- String lights: Brighten up your space with white and/or multicolored mini lights. You can buy strings with as little as 20 lights to as many as 500 lights. Using thumbtacks, command hooks or wall-safe tape, put up the lights around doorways, windows, walls or intertwine with garlands for colorful cheer.
- Mini Christmas trees: Select from a variety of light up trees, glittery trees, ceramic trees or a simple plain tree. Next, find some mini ornaments and a tree topper and decorate away. Personalize your tree however you want. The small tree size allows for easy packing away and storage for holiday seasons to come.
- Stockings: Choose some stockings and hang them up on a door or wall. For a fun project, select plain stockings and personalize them using paint with suitemates or other students in your building. Be sure to grab stocking stuffers such as candy, comfy socks, game pieces (DND dice set, cards), lip balm and other accessories to slip into your friends’ stockings.
- Pillows: Pick out an assortment of Christmas-themed pillows to arrange on your chair(s) and bed. They double as a plush comfort to hug or surround yourself with when the weather gets frosty.
- Wreaths: Buy a small wreath for your dorm door, or make one from ornaments, candy canes, ribbon, fake plantsㅡ pretty much anything you want. Wreaths can be as simple or as elaborate as you want.
- Candles: Arrange various-sized LED candles in decorated candle holders for some tasteful holiday shine. Candle holders or stands are easy to find or create. Gather some pots, jars, bottles or small containers along with paint or ribbon and decorate how you wish.
- Various wall decor: Buy or make decorative signs, snowflakes, posters with paper, glitter and cardboard for a simple but fun option to enhance your walls.
The Christmas holiday is all about meaningful time and connections with people that you love. Make your dorm decorating into a way to bond with friends, suitemates or others in your building. Go shopping, make or embellished items and put-up decorations together ㅡ while sucking on candy canes, sipping on hot chocolate and playing Christmas music, of course. Happy decorating.
Esther David can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @Esther_David_ .