Last Christmas, I spent exactly €23 on decorations. Twenty-three euros. I know because I tracked every cent in my phone notes like some kind of festive accountant.
That same December, a photographer from Glorian Koti magazine came to shoot our apartment for their joulukodit (Christmas homes) feature. She walked in, looked around, and said: “This is exactly the Scandinavian Christmas we wanted.” And I almost laughed, because behind the beautifully styled spruce garland and the elegant candle arrangement was a woman who had spent less on her entire Christmas decor than most people spend on a single wreath.
Here’s what I’ve learned: the most beautiful Christmas homes aren’t the ones with the most stuff. They’re the ones where every single element has been chosen with care, where nature does most of the heavy lifting, and where the warmth comes from candles and wood and the smell of spruce rather than from plastic baubles and battery-operated lights.
This is how I do it. Every cost listed. Every shortcut shared.
The Finnish Christmas Aesthetic
Before I get into specifics, a word on the vibe. Finnish joulukoristelu — Christmas decorating — has its own character, distinct from the maximalist Anglo-American tradition.
It’s quiet. Lots of natural materials: spruce, birch, dried flowers, wool. Candles everywhere, real ones, not electric. A color palette of green, white, red (used sparingly), and warm metallics. There’s an emphasis on quality over quantity. One beautiful handmade star rather than fifteen shiny plastic ones.
The Finnish approach also respects joulurauha — the Christmas peace. The home should feel calm, warm, sheltering. When it’s -15°C outside and pitch dark by 3 pm and the wind is coming off the Baltic, your home needs to be a sanctuary. The decorations should contribute to that feeling, not fight with it.
My grandmother understood this instinctively. Her Christmas decorating consisted of spruce branches on every surface, red candles, a straw himmeli mobile hanging in the window, and apples in a wooden bowl. That was it. The house smelled like forest and cinnamon and beeswax, and it was the most magical Christmas space I’ve ever been in. I’ve been chasing that feeling ever since.
The Free Stuff: Foraged Decorations
The backbone of my Christmas decorating costs nothing because it comes from the forest.
Spruce and Pine Branches
Every December, I walk to Keskuspuisto — Helsinki’s central park, a ten-minute walk from my apartment — with a pair of secateurs and a canvas bag. I cut small branches from the lower parts of spruce trees where pruning actually helps the tree. In Finland, this kind of foraging is covered by jokamiehenoikeus (everyman’s right), though it’s good practice to take small amounts from multiple trees rather than stripping one bare.
I come home with an armful of spruce. It goes everywhere:
- Along the windowsills. Laid flat, just a few branches, with candles tucked among them.
- In a tall vase in the hallway. A few large branches arranged like an asymmetric bouquet. My Iittala Aalto vase works perfectly for this.
- Over the doorframes. Attached with small adhesive hooks (the Command Strip kind that don’t damage paint).
- As a table runner. A line of spruce down the center of the dining table with candles interspersed. This was the shot Glorian Koti used for their feature.
Fresh spruce lasts about three weeks indoors before it starts dropping needles. I mist mine with water every few days to extend their life. When they dry out, they go straight into the bio-waste. Fully compostable Christmas decoration. Total cost: €0.
Birch Branches
If I can find them — usually from a park or a friend’s garden — a few bare birch branches in a vase create a stunning minimal arrangement. You can hang small decorations from them (more on that below) or leave them bare. The pale bark against dark green spruce is such a Nordic combination. Total cost: €0.
Pine Cones
I collect these in autumn, actually. By December they’ve been sitting in a bowl on the shelf for weeks. Sometimes I leave them natural. Sometimes I dip the tips in white paint for a snowy effect — a project that takes five minutes and uses leftover wall paint. Total cost: €0.
Dried Orange Slices
Okay, these cost something — about €1 worth of oranges from the grocery store. Slice them thin (about 4mm), lay them on a baking rack, and dry them in the oven at 100°C for about two hours, flipping once. They come out golden, translucent, and fragrant. I string them with thin twine and hang them in the window or tuck them into spruce arrangements. They last the entire season and the apartment smells incredible while they’re drying.
The Cheap Stuff: Under €25 Total
Here’s where the €23 went last year.
Beeswax Candles — €12
The single biggest expense, and worth every cent. I buy beeswax tapers from Hunajainen (the same Finnish producer I use year-round) — about six tapers at roughly €2 each. These go in the brass candlesticks I already own (bought years ago at flea markets for next to nothing) and in the Iittala Kastehelmi holders.
Beeswax burns cleaner than paraffin, smells faintly of honey, and has that warm golden color that paraffin candles try to imitate and never quite match. I also pick up a few pillar candles from K-Citymarket — their store-brand beeswax pillars are surprisingly good at about €3 each. I buy two.
Candles are non-negotiable in a Finnish Christmas. During the darkest weeks of December, when the sun rises at 9:15 and sets at 3:15, candlelight isn’t atmospheric — it’s essential.
Hyacinth Bulbs — €6
Three potted hyacinth bulbs from Plantagen at €2 each. I buy them in early November when they’re just starting to shoot, repot them into simple terracotta pots I already own, and by early December they’re blooming.
The scent of hyacinths is, to me, the smell of Finnish Christmas. My mother always had them. White ones, though I sometimes get the pale pink variety for a change. They sit on the kitchen windowsill and in the living room, and when you walk into the apartment the fragrance greets you before anything visual does.
After they’ve finished blooming, I plant the bulbs in the garden soil at our mökki (summer cottage). Some of them actually come back the following year.
Paper Star Lantern — €5
The Stråla star from IKEA. You know the one. It’s been the same design for years — a simple white paper star that you hang in the window with a light inside. Nearly every apartment window in Helsinki has one starting in late November. It’s practically a civic duty.
I’ve used the same star for three years running. The paper gets slightly yellowed, which honestly makes the light warmer and lovelier. When it finally falls apart, I’ll spend another €5. Meanwhile, this single object visible from outside makes the apartment look festive from the street.
DIY Projects That Look Expensive
The Wreath — €0 to €3
I make my own wreath every year. Here’s how:
Take a wire coat hanger (free — every dry cleaner gives these away) and bend it into a circle. If you want a fuller wreath, wrap it with some old newspaper first to build volume, securing it with string. Then wire or tie spruce branches around the frame, overlapping as you go. It takes about 30 minutes.
Last year I added a few dried orange slices, three pine cones, and a short length of linen ribbon I had in my craft supplies. That was it. The result looked like something from a design magazine, and the only cost was the ribbon (maybe €3 if you need to buy it — I used an old one).
The key is restraint. Don’t overload the wreath. Let the greenery do the work. A few carefully placed accents are far more elegant than a wreath that’s groaning under ornaments.
Himmeli — €0
The traditional Finnish himmeli is a hanging mobile made from straw or dried grass stems, threaded with cotton thread. My grandmother made them. My mother makes them. And the past three years, I’ve been making them too.
You need dried straw or rye stalks (foraged from fields in late summer and saved — or bought from a craft store for a few euros) and thread. The basic diamond shape is simple: cut twelve equal-length pieces, thread them into octahedrons. Hang them from the ceiling with white thread.
A single himmeli turning slowly in the warm air above a candle is one of the most beautiful things I know. It catches light. It throws geometric shadows. It’s been part of Finnish Christmas since at least the 18th century and it costs essentially nothing.
I keep mine from year to year. They’re delicate but durable if you store them carefully. My oldest one is from 2022 and still looks perfect.
The Advent Calendar — €2 to €5
Forget the chocolate-filled cardboard calendars. Here’s what I do: 24 small brown paper bags (€2 for a pack of 50 at Tiger or Flying Tiger), numbered with a marker, each containing something small. A chocolate truffle. A handwritten note. A tea bag. A silly joke. A small origami star.
I hang the bags from a birch branch mounted on the wall with twine and tiny wooden pegs (the pegs cost about €2 from a craft store and I reuse them every year). It looks charming. It’s personal. And filling the bags is one of my favorite November evening activities — a glass of wine, some Christmas music, and 24 small kindnesses to package.
The Shopping List (What I Actually Bought)
For full transparency, here’s exactly what I purchased last December:
| Item | Where | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| 6 beeswax tapers | Hunajainen (online) | €12 |
| 3 hyacinth bulbs | Plantagen | €6 |
| Paper star (replacement) | IKEA | €5 |
| Total | €23 |
Everything else — the spruce, the pine cones, the orange slices, the wreath, the himmeli, the candle holders, the vases, the fabric runners — was either foraged, homemade, or already owned.
This is the power of building a collection of simple, quality base pieces over the years. My brass candlesticks were flea market finds from 2018 and 2019. The linen table runner was a gift. The terracotta pots have held hyacinths for five seasons. Once you have the bones of your Christmas decoration, the annual cost is almost nothing.
The Styling: Putting It All Together
Let me walk you through my apartment room by room, because the placement matters as much as the pieces.
Living Room
The spruce table runner along the coffee table. Three beeswax tapers in mixed-height brass candlesticks at the center. The Lapuan Kankurit wool throw draped on the sofa (it lives there from September anyway — this is the beauty of seasonal transitioning, the autumn setup flows right into Christmas). One hyacinth on the side table. The himmeli hangs from the ceiling above the dining area.
That’s it. Nothing on the walls. No tinsel. No fairy lights (controversial, I know, but I find the candle-only approach more peaceful). The room smells like spruce and beeswax and hyacinth. It feels warm and still and exactly right.
Kitchen
A small spruce arrangement on the windowsill. One hyacinth in its terracotta pot. A wooden bowl of clementines (these would be grocery shopping, not decorating budget, but they count aesthetically). The Pentik Saaga mugs are out — their dark glaze feels wintery. A batch of joulutorttu (Christmas star pastries) cooling on the counter adds more to the Christmas feeling than any decoration could.
Hallway
The wreath on the front door (hung with a simple over-door hook, €3 from Clas Ohlson, bought years ago). Tall spruce branches in the Aalto vase on the console table. One candle. The paper star visible through the window at the end of the hall.
Bedroom
Minimal. A sprig of spruce on the bedside table, tucked into a small vase. One candle (we light it while reading before sleep). The heavy linen bedding in dark mushroom — already in place from the autumn switch. A wool blanket at the foot of the bed. The room is a retreat, not a display, and the Christmas touches are just whispers.
Bathroom
A single candle on the shelf. A small bundle of dried eucalyptus (left over from autumn — it’s lost its scent but the silvery-green color is still beautiful). That’s all. The bathroom gets the least Christmas attention and doesn’t need more.
What I Learned From the Magazine Shoot
When the Glorian Koti photographer came, I was nervous she’d think it was too sparse. That she’d want me to add things. “Could we get a few more ornaments on the table?” or “Do you have any fairy lights?”
She didn’t ask for any of that. She photographed it exactly as it was. Her comment was: “This feels real. Most Christmas shoots feel staged. Yours feels like someone actually lives here and loves it.”
And that, I think, is the secret. Not just of budget Christmas decorating, but of all home styling. It should feel lived in. Loved. Personal. My grandmother’s himmeli tradition. The brass candlesticks from the flea market with the slightly uneven bases. The hyacinths that smell like every childhood Christmas I remember. These things can’t be bought in a single department store trip, no matter the budget.
A Note on Sustainability
The whole approach here is inherently sustainable. Foraged greenery composts. Beeswax candles are a natural product. Paper decorations biodegrade. Hyacinth bulbs get replanted. The brass and ceramic pieces last decades.
Compare this to the typical Christmas decoration haul: plastic baubles that crack after two seasons, battery-operated lights that end up in landfill, synthetic wreaths that shed microplastic glitter. The budget approach isn’t just cheaper — it’s genuinely kinder to the planet.
And it looks better. I’ll stand by that. A spruce branch with beeswax candles will always look more beautiful than a plastic tree with LED lights. Nature doesn’t need improving.
The Feeling of Joulurauha
There’s a moment on Christmas Eve afternoon — around 4 pm, just before we leave for my mother’s house — when I walk through the apartment one last time. Everything is ready. The candles are out, waiting to be lit when we return. The spruce smells strong and green. The hyacinths are at their peak. Outside it’s completely dark, and if we’re lucky, there’s snow quieting the city.
Joulurauha. Christmas peace. It’s declared officially from the balcony of the Brinkkala building in Turku at noon on Christmas Eve, a tradition since 1320. But in my apartment, it arrives earlier. It arrives the moment the last candle is placed and the decorations are complete and the home feels ready to hold whatever the holiday brings.
That feeling doesn’t come from spending. It comes from care. From the small, deliberate choices — the foraging walk in the cold, the wreath made by hand, the himmeli turning slowly overhead. From the accumulated memory of Christmases past layered into every object.
Twenty-three euros. A walk in the forest. Some time with my hands. And the kind of beauty that money genuinely cannot buy.
I hope your December is warm and bright and smells like spruce. If you’re looking for more ideas on mixing old traditions with modern styling, I’ve written about blending vintage and contemporary pieces — the same philosophy applies beautifully to holiday decorating.
Hyvää joulua.
