My mom loves holidays and holiday home decorating. As a kid I could count on a big Halloween party with black and orange food coloring liberally employed; a full home décor shift to reds, pinks, and lace for Valentine’s Day; and a patriotic extravaganza come Independence Day. I loved it. My mom loved it. But does that mean that in good conscience I could dole out home decorating advice from my mom’s bag of holiday decorating tricks?

Sometimes your clients have tastes that are different from your own. If you’re not a the type of decorator who places a scarecrow on the porch for Halloween and a bunny decal in the window for Easter, but your clients lean that way, can you have any part in their holiday home decorating? With a few pointers, turns out you can help and still stay classy. Here’s how.

Create the Space for Holiday Home Decorating

If you’re working with a client who loves holiday flags, holiday rugs, holiday trees, or any other type of slightly overzealous holiday home decorating, your job is not to come up with the holiday doodads. That’s half the fun for your festive clients. Instead, set up their non-holiday home decorating scheme in a way that offers openings for holiday decorations. For folks who love adding in extras, keep everyday decorations minimal.

Decorating Informal Spaces

Clients are often eager to focus on the rooms they’ll use for entertaining, such as living rooms and dining rooms, but for holiday home decorating nuts, more informal rooms, such as kitchens, family rooms, even bedrooms–especially children’s bedrooms–can be a better forum for fun. When you’re offering home decorating advice, you can encourage them to save the “best” holiday decorations for the rooms their families really use.

When in Doubt, Do the Decorating

If you’ve agreed to work with a client whose holiday home decorating fever strikes you as something about as appealing as a killer strain of influenza, take a step back and realize that holidays and the decorating that surrounds them can be a lot of fun. And just remember, you get to go back to your house when it’s all done.
With a little class and a little craziness, you can dish out home decorating advice for even your most holiday-happy clients.