What I Leave Up in January (and What Goes Straight Down)

Every year I do the same thing. I keep my Christmas decor up as long as humanly possible (it stays until January 6th, always), and then I spend one very long afternoon taking it all down, and then I walk back into my living room and it looks like we got robbed.

That’s not an exaggeration. The corner where the tree was is just… floor. The mantel is a bare shelf. The whole house goes from warm and glowing to beige and echoing in about four hours, and every single year I’ve stood there at 7pm feeling genuinely sad about it.

So a few years ago I started doing this differently, and honestly it’s changed January for me completely. Instead of taking everything down, I take down the Christmas and leave up the winter. Those are two different things! And once I figured out where the line was, the eight weeks between the tree coming down and spring showing up stopped feeling like a dead zone.

My one rule

Here it is, and it’s stupidly simple: anything red, glittered, or with a bell on it goes.

That’s it. That’s the whole system. If it’s red, it goes. If it sheds glitter, it goes (and good riddance, I’m still finding glitter from 2022 in my hardwood). If it jingles, it goes!

Everything else gets to stay and become winter decor. Bare greenery, plain pinecones, white candles, wood, knit textures, anything cream or oatmeal or gray. None of that is Christmas! It’s just cold weather, and it’s February that I need it for.

Here’s exactly what stays at my house.

1. Chunky knit throws

The throws never leave. Not once, not for a single day. They’re already out, they’re already draped over the arm of every chair, and the second you remove them a room reads as unfinished!

I’ll be honest, it took me forever to find a throw I actually liked at a price I could stomach. Every hand-knit one I loved on Instagram was $150 and up, and I could not talk myself into that for a blanket my daughter drags across the floor. This cream one is 50x60, it’s the fat chunky chenille that actually looks handmade instead of looking like a machine tried, and it lives on the back of our couch year-round. Cream is the move, by the way — if your throws are plaid or buffalo check, those need to go with the Christmas bins, because plaid is doing a lot of Christmas work whether you meant it to or not.

2. A wreath with absolutely nothing on it

An empty front door in January is the saddest thing on a street. But a Christmas wreath in mid-January is worse, so for years I just had nothing, and I hated it.

Then I got a plain flocked lambs ear wreath and it solved the entire problem. It’s 24 inches, it’s soft dusty green with a frosted white finish, and there is not one berry, bow, or bell on it. In December I wire a red velvet ribbon onto it and it’s a Christmas wreath. On January 6th I untie the ribbon, and it’s a winter wreath. Same wreath! It stays on my door until the tulips are out.

If you buy one thing off this list, make it this one! It’s the single item that does the most work for the least effort.

3. Plain white pillar candles

My mantel is the hardest surface in the house in January, because I’ve had garland on it for six weeks and then suddenly it’s a bare board with a TV over it.

Candles fix it. Not scented ones, not seasonal ones — just tall white pillars in varying heights, grouped in threes. I use the 3x6 unscented ones because they burn for around 65 hours and they don’t fight with anything, and I put them right on the mantel with a few pinecones scattered between them. It takes four minutes and the mantel stops looking abandoned!

(A quick note if you have a small kid or a cat with opinions, and I have both: I do a mix. Real ones up high, battery ones where little hands reach.)

4. Birch bark flameless candles

Speaking of. These are the ones I use for anywhere I don’t want an actual flame, and they’re the only battery candles I’ve found that don’t look obviously fake from across the room. They have a real wax coating over a birch bark print, so they read as wood, which is exactly the note I want in January. Set of three, remote and timer included, and the battery genuinely lasts — mine ran the whole winter on one set!

They go on the floating shelf in our entry where my daughter can absolutely reach them, and I sleep fine.

5. Greenery stems in whatever held the Christmas ones

If you had cedar or pine in a vase or a pitcher for Christmas, do not put that vase away. Pull the Christmas greenery out and put winter greenery in.

I use eucalyptus stems — I have an 18-piece set that I break up between three different spots, the kitchen counter, the entry table and the bathroom. The gray-green is perfect for this stretch because it isn’t reading as any holiday at all, it just looks like someone lives here and cares.

I also love faux cotton stems for January and I’ve been hunting for a set I can actually recommend (the ones I have came from a Hobby Lobby clearance bin years ago and they don’t sell them anymore, sorry!). If you find good ones, the mix of cotton and birch branches in a tall floor vase is honestly my favorite winter arrangement.

6. Winter-white pillow covers

Pillow covers are the cheapest decor swap that exists and I will say that until I’m blue in the face. You keep your same pillow inserts and you just change the outfit.

My Christmas covers (the red ones, the plaid ones) come off January 6th and these white ones go on. They’re 18x18, cotton canvas, set of two, with a small embroidered snowflake — and a snowflake is winter, not Christmas, which is exactly the distinction I’m making all through this post. They wash well, which matters, because a white pillow cover in a house with a kid is a bold choice and I’m aware of that.

7. Plain pinecones (free!)

These cost nothing and they’re the thing people compliment most, which is a little annoying.

I pull all the glittered and flocked pinecones out of my Christmas bins and I keep the bare ones out in a wooden bowl on the coffee table, tucked between the mantel candles, and a couple in the bathroom. That’s it. If you don’t have plain ones, go outside — and then bake them at 200 degrees for about half an hour on a foil-lined sheet before you bring them into your house, because otherwise you’re inviting bugs in, and I found that out in my own living room in Tennessee!

What goes down the same day the tree does

For the sake of being clear, because I get asked this:

• Anything red. Ribbon, berries, truck, plaid, all of it.
• Anything with glitter. No exceptions, y’all.
• Stockings and stocking hangers.
• Bells, jingle garland, anything that makes noise.
• Santas, nutcrackers, sleighs, reindeer with saddles.
• Bottle brush trees in colors. (Plain cream or white ones can stay through January! Green ones look like leftovers.)
• Anything that says a word. “Merry,” “Joy,” “Believe” — down.

One last thing that matters more than any of this

Fill the tree corner that night. Not next weekend — that night!

I don’t care what you put there. We drag a chair over with a basket next to it and a floor lamp behind it. But that empty rectangle of floor is what makes the room feel wrong, way more than the missing ornaments do, and if you leave it empty you’re going to walk past it for six weeks feeling low about your house.

Fill the hole, keep the neutrals, pull the red. Eight weeks goes by fast.

If you do a January reset like this, post it and tag me @sugardesignco — I really want to see what everybody keeps up. It’s my favorite thing to nosy about this time of year!

-Ciera

Made something with this? Tag me @sugardesignco — I love seeing them.