Christmas Mantel Decor: Adding Holiday Cheer with a Mantel Garland

In this post: Looking for Christmas mantel decor ideas? Get an instant burst of holiday cheer by adding a Christmas mantel garland to your fireplace.⇒

I was determined.

I had 2 goals for this holiday season. Two things I felt I never quite got right that I was determined to conquer this year.

One I tackled this week and the other is in the plans for next week. 

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s back up for a minute and look at the first goal and why I felt I’ve been failing miserably up until this point.

I’m talking about my holiday mantel. And the thing it’s lacked in the past was a lush mantel garland.

Christmas Mantel Decor

As I look back through photos of my past holiday decorations, particularly Christmas mantel decor, the one thing most missing is greenery. 

Sure, I had the bottle brush trees, scattered ornaments and candlelight.

But without the greenery, and I mean enough greenery, that is really really lush greenery, it fell flat.

So this was to be the year I mastered the holiday mantel garland.

(You’ll have to let me know if I succeeded.)

I started this quest in October. 

Yep, while everyone else was planting mums and scattering pumpkins around their homes, I was watching videos on how to wire together 5 or 6 garlands to create a sumptuous verdant mantelscape.

I started planning out this complex mix of boughs culled from disparate sources and trying to gauge how they would drape together.

Perfectly willing to go through the extensive effort, I had a shopping list with tallies of what the whole thing would cost.

But as the number grew higher and the project more convoluted, I happened upon one single garland that would get most of the job done on its own!

Now, a word about cost.

I never would have started out looking for a garland in this price range, but that’s because I thought I had to piece together multiple garlands to get the look I wanted. 

So while I started looking in the $50 range, I wound up spending a couple of hundred, and probably spent less that I would have wiring multiple strands together, when all was said and done.

All that said, I know you’re going to want the link to garland I used.  I’d love to link it but it’s currently sold out.  I will put the link to the garland vendor here anyway so that you can contact the vendor, see what else she has or at least have it for when it’s back in stock.

The garland is a lovely mix of soft faux pine and artificial eucalyptus. It bends easily and has enough softness to drape. You can probably get the same look with only 2 garlands and I’ve linked 2 from the same vendor in the source list below.

I wanted my garland to drape over the ends of the mantel and to dip beneath it in the center, so I wired it to command hooks on top of the mantel at each end.  

I worried this wouldn’t hold since it’s pretty heavy but it’s staying just fine.

The next concern was that on one end of the garland there is a jute loop for hanging rather than a nice symmetrical finish of greens to match the opposite end.

So this was the one place I needed to add to the garland and I did so with faux greenery branches I already had that matched well with the pine of the garland. Where the branches meet the garland I added a satin ribbon bow (see above) to distract from the change in direction of the greenery.

With the mantel garland in place, the rest of the room came together really easily. 

In keeping with my recent preference for a bit more simplicity, I left the coffee table fairly understated with just a vintage garden urn serving a few more sprigs of pine, as well as a cluster of painted glass trees with metallic tips .

As our fireplace is topped with a lovely antique gilded mirror, it perfectly lends itself to reflecting candlelight, so I pulled together an assortment of my favorite candlesticks, some vintage and others painted to look that way.

The flickering in the mirror doubles the warm glow.

Flanking the candles at the ends of the mantel I had hoped to add paperwhites but never got to the store to get them, so out came the bottle brush trees and glittered cones and they did the job just as well.

I added cream colored sweater knit stockings tucked under one end, and hope to get a few more to fill out the look.

I didn’t necessarily start out planning to remove all the color from this room.  In fact I expected to work with the pale lavender recently added (you can see the room’s most recent look HERE).

But when I replaced the pale purple throw with the faux fur one seen here, and moved the coffee table floral to make way for the seasonal decor, the color got stripped away on its own.

It turns out the wintery textures add to the cozy feel of the room and I’m enjoying all the creamy whites as they contrast against the greenery.

This also leaves me plenty of room to go in any direction I want with the tree.

I’m working with several tabletop trees this year, which I will highlight in a separate post, but this sweet little one in the corner will be dressed pretty soon and the neutral tone of the room allows me the freedom to add color… or not.

(And I did get the upper lights working after I took this photo… ?).

So, in the final analysis, I think I took many steps forward in upping my mantel decorating game.

But I still think there’s room for improvement.  I already have ideas for next year that I hope I remember when the time comes.  Please add your advice in the comments below!

There’s one thing I know for sure that this exercise has taught me.

It’s all about the greenery and when you think you have enough, add more!