How to Decorate Your RV for the Holidays

There’s a lot to recommend RV living — the mobility, the affordability, the simplicity of having a small space to clean and fewer possessions to keep up with. When holiday time comes around, though, it might be a bit challenging to decorate your RV in the seasonal spirit, what with not having a yard, and not having a lot of space to either display or store decorations. A little creativity, however, and you can have a merry space! Read on for some ideas of how to decorate your RV, inside and out, for the holidays.

Use your wall space to create a tree! Instead of opting for a traditional or tabletop tree, look to your wall space. You can create a tree with floating shelves, or with sticks and boughs from the outdoors. Hang or place a few ornaments, add in some LED tealights or strings of lights — battery operated LED ones mean not having to worry about plugging in — and you’ve got a bright focal point for your holiday celebrations. If you celebrate another holiday, such as Yule or Hannukah, you can tweak this idea and create shelves for a menorah or LED votives.

Hang on the simple wreath (or two, or three) on the outside of your RV. This is a super simple idea, but it looks great if you choose the right wreaths. Find some you like and place them in high-visibility areas, such as on the front bumper, on the door, or along the side of the RV. You can choose rustic and natural, or go all out on neon tinsel and glitter. 

Choose a few simple, high-impact touches. You don’t have to decorate every inch of your place to have a merry holiday home. Choose some holiday-themed throw pillows, a lap blanket or two in holiday colors or patterns, and perhaps a few cheery seasonal towels, coffee mugs or dishes, and you can bring in the season without having to completely redecorate. Bonus points if you can put slipcovers on the pillows and keep them out all year round (or if you can find holiday-themed covers that fit on your existing pillows!).

Light it up. Lights are the reason for the season, it seems, and lights are also easy to use and easy to store way to decorate your RV for the holidays. You can use some simple strands of white or colored lights inside, around window frames or strung across the ceiling. Some well-placed strands outside can also make your space festive. And of course, you can channel your inner Clark Griswold and go all out with lights and lighted decoration in your front yard — provided you have a place to stash all that when the season is over!

Decorate around a color scheme. For a subtler but still cheerful holiday touch, choose a color scheme — red and green, red and white, silver and blue, etc. — and decorate around that. Choose things like throw pillows, blankets, dishware, sheets, towels, and the like in your color scheme. This allows you to use them throughout the year if you wish and makes it easy to find things that go with your theme or replace them as needed.

String it up. Fishing line or solid nylon string can be used to make strings of ornaments, which you can hang almost like beaded curtains in doorways (use shatterproof ornaments!) or as wall display. Or string ornaments from the ceiling, around window frames, and in windows. 

Put a bow on it. Adding ribbon and bows to doors — cupboards, cabinets, interior or exterior doors — can add a touch of holiday cheer without a lot of fuss. Garland can also be draped or attached to doors and window frames and then finished off with a big ribbon bow.