Christmas Kitchen Decor for a Small Kitchen: 6 Places to Put It

Put it on the glass. The window over the sink is the one spot nobody cooks on. You look at it every time you wash up, and at dusk it's the brightest thing in the room.

• Reusable clings press onto smooth glass with no adhesive, so they peel off in January and can go up again next year
• Keep them to the lower two thirds of the pane. Flakes scattered across the whole window start to look like a sticker sheet
• Mix the sizes. Three sizes of flake read as snow, one size reads as wallpaper
• Clings need clean, smooth glass, so wipe the pane dry first and skip frosted or textured panels
• Size the garland to the window: measure across the top and add about a third, so it can dip in the middle

Then hang something organic across the top. Dried orange slices on twine catch the evening light and add the warm color a white kitchen lacks. Tie it to a curtain rod. But keep it out of the splash zone.

Pick the clings if the glass is all you've got. Pick the garland if your kitchen is white or grey. For candlelight on the sill, the flameless tapers in our Christmas decor ideas guide sit well in a holder.

Hang mini wreaths from the knobs. Cabinet doors are the biggest flat surface in a small kitchen. A wreath on a ribbon loop uses none of your counter and leaves no hole behind.

• Loop each ribbon over the top edge of the door (a knob works too), and hang them all at the same height so the row reads as a line
• Keep the loop short so the wreath sits flat against the door and doesn't swing every time you open it
• Use odd numbers on one run of cabinets, three or five, and leave a door bare in between
• Hang fewer than the pack holds. Four or five is plenty (they're faux, so no needles near the stove), and the spares can go on a closet door
• Will it mark the cabinets? A ribbon loop over a knob touches the door lightly and nothing sticks, so there's nothing to peel off at move-out

A velvet bow does the other half. Tie one around a pull handle or a drawer knob and you've decorated a door for almost nothing. A wired ribbon holds its shape, so the loops stay crisp past day two.

Match the reds. Two different reds on one run of cabinets looks like leftovers. Pick the wreaths if you have a run of upper cabinets, and the ribbon if your doors have knobs or handles, since a bow sits flat around a bar.

One jar, and nothing else. Counter space is what a small kitchen can't spare, so the rule is a single decoration that also holds something you'll eat.

• Fill it with cookies, clementines or candy canes. It's decor on day one and snacks by day three
• Park it where the counter meets the wall, not in the middle of your chopping space
• Clear glass with a wooden lid looks like it always lived there, so it holds flour or pasta in January
• What goes in it besides cookies? Whole walnuts in the shell, a few cinnamon sticks, or a pile of clementines. They look like decoration and keep for weeks, and nobody has to bake

Skip the tray of little figurines. Three reindeer on a narrow counter are a spill waiting for an elbow, and they're the first thing you move every time you cook.

Our small apartment Christmas decor guide says the same about stockings. Anything on the kitchen counter is charming for two days and in the way after that. Pick the jar if you bake, or get given cookies.

On the cabinet door, where your hands already go. Towels and mitts have to stay within reach, so give them a bar. Draping them over the oven door is how they end up next to a burner.

• A bar that hooks over the cabinet door needs no tools (it fits doors about 5/8 to 1 inch thick, so measure yours first)
• Hang it at the end of a run, away from the burners. Fabric near a flame is the one real risk in this room
• One Christmas towel is enough. The hand towel at the sink is the one guests touch, so that's the one that should look festive
• The bar isn't a one-month purchase. It holds a tea towel or a spatula all year, so it earns its place in February too
• Pick the bar first. It's the whole fix for the oven-door habit. The towel and the mitts are optional

Buy a towel that still works in March. Tartan waffle weave is festive in December and fine in a drawer afterwards. It also soaks up water well, so it won't sit there as decoration only.

Buy neutral mitts, because they stay out all year. Plain tan gingham beside a red towel reads as Christmas, and in January it reads as kitchen. Pick the towels for the color, and the mitts if yours are tired.

Simmer it. A small pot of water with orange slices, cinnamon, cloves and star anise on the lowest heat does what a candle does, with no flame and no spare surface.

1. Pour a pouch into a small pot and cover the spices with water
2. Bring it to a bare simmer, then turn it down as low as it goes
3. Top up the water before it drops below the spices, and never leave it going while you're out

• A kit holds dried orange, cinnamon, cloves, star anise and a little rosemary. It smells like fruit and spice, which suits a room where food is already being made
• Six pouches means six evenings, so save them for the nights people are coming over

Warm orange and cinnamon is the smell people link to a December kitchen, and guests notice it before they notice anything on the walls.

A candle is the wrong tool here. A flame on a counter you cook on is the first thing you'll end up moving, and wax smells fight whatever's in the pan. Pick the kit if your kitchen has no room for anything else.

Anything that burns, drips or can't take steam. A kitchen is the one room where decorations share space with open flame and hot grease, so the rules are stricter than in the living room.

• Keep paper, straw and fabric about an arm's length from the burners, and that includes garland and towels
• Use flameless candles in the kitchen. A real flame beside a cooktop is one reach too many
• Keep dried fruit and paper away from the sink and the kettle, where steam and splashes get at them
• Leave the range hood bare. Heat and grease collect there, and nothing sticks up there for long
• Battery lights are fine near the stove if they're enclosed and clear of the splash zone. Keep any cord off the cooktop

Where does the dried garland go, then? In the window, across the room from the burners. The cabinet wreaths belong on the run furthest from the cooktop, for the same reason.

Do one lap before you finish. Stand at the stove and look up and out. Move anything within reach that isn't metal or glass. It takes a minute and it's the only step here that matters for safety.