Darren Palmer's guide to styling a home for Christmas

I’ve been guilty of outsourcing Christmas in different ways on several occasions.

For the past four years I’ve created the Yourtown Christmas prize home which gets drawn two days before Christmas, so it comes with a fully decorated tree, perfectly wrapped presents and a set and styled table, ready for the lucky winner to insert their festive lunch.

We’ve had seaside themes; blue, silver and white; green and red and this year my favourite of all is white and driftwood – but alas I haven’t done much more than say “wow” after installation as it was taken care of for me.

I’ve outsourced Christmas tree decorating to the kids in our family for the past few years, encouraging them to go crazy with mismatched colour, loads of lights and the tackiest, most wonderfully shambolic approach to decorating for the holidays.

We’ve had pink and charcoal, silver and grey or whatever was on bulk volume sale the week before Christmas because we’ve been just too busy to even get the tree, let alone decorate it.

I dream of the day when I have the time and inclination to create the perfectly styled Christmas, I imagine something between Aerin Lauder and Martha Stewart – the perfectly colour-coordinated Christmas with a real wreath hanging from the door, perhaps made from Australian natives that bloom in December.

I imagine walking into my foyer and seeing garlands of paper bells or Christmas baubles or fairy lights slung like festoon lighting diagonally across the ceiling.

Gliding into the living space you’d be greeted with 2.7-metre high tree, just shy of the 2.9-metre ceilings in my house, decorated with aplomb and restraint with hand-crafted decorations in delicate glass, or weathered timber with more fairy lights hidden within the branches, single strands of tinsel placed ever so perfectly on every next branch, with the perfectly styled carefree look that only comes with hours of study and consideration.

Each present would be decorated within a carefully curated palette of alternating plain, coloured papers with accents like brown paper and twine or contrast between the matt paper and some knockout metallic bows, ribbons and wrapping.

The festive table would pick up the same colour scheme, with the tablecloth being the perfect, deep-coloured plum base, with accents of the dark teal in the napkins with gold rimmed glassware, charging plates and decorative items strewn throughout the table, with some more Australian natives in low vases among the mix.

I think I’d use a simple cutlery colour like black or anthracite just to give a little relief.

Or maybe we would go down the reclaimed and conscious consumer route and mismatch everything from found objects and saved gift wrappings of years gone by, the house being a carefully boho chic style. Perhaps there would be woven textiles and mismatched patterns with a touch of Moroccan or Turkish textile flair.

I might get some off-cuts from a local fabric house and wrap my presents in an array of beautiful and individual wrapping arrangements to perfectly suit their recipients and give an explosion of pattern and colour under the tree.

Festoon lighting would grace the space above our heads, whether under the verandah or outside under a tree, and the feeling would be so relaxed but invigorating, brimming with excitement that the special day spent with loved ones brings.

Alas, however, we’ll be having a low-maintenance celebration this year, but with the people we love most in a probably low-key and last-minute arrangement of whatever decorations we can drag out of their box.

I’ll go to bed with a smile and a full tummy and dream of that perfect, designer Christmas happening some day in the future.