How do you celebrate Holidays in a Tiny House?

Did you ever see those ‘tiny house’ shows on TV and wonder “How do people living in tiny houses celebrate the holidays?” In fact how can you celebrate anything in a home when there’s barely enough room to live? While there are many obstacles to living ‘normal’ in a tiny house, adding traditions, family, holiday feasts, decorations, and presents to 399 square foot home is an interesting challenge.

Just like everyone else when the ‘tiny house’ craze swept through, I thought they were absolutely adorable and I thought “I could live in a ‘tiny house’.” But I was NOT one of those people who just jumped on the bandwagon and went out to join the craze. I was newly divorced and living in ‘his home town’. I had always been drawn to the idea of simple farm living and I found a small piece of land, but it lacked a house. A simple 399 square foot ‘tiny house’ was the perfect financial answer to get a start my new farm. So my son moved into my large home and I packed up and headed toward ‘tiny’.

Fast forward to now –

It’s now 3 years later, it’s the holidays, and I still love my tiny house. I also now have a new love and we are both minimalists (which really helps). We have creatively overcome many of the obstacles of living in a tiny house and I know… you are wondering how can we celebrate in such a tiny house. Well since you have questions, let me shed some light on tiny living.

Holiday Decorations:

In my old house each and every room was decorated for the holidays – the curtains, the windows, the walls, the floors, everything you can imagine inside and outside, got decorated.  After the holidays were over, all of the decorations got stored in a number of plastic totes in the shed until it was time to do it all over again the following year.

So how do you decorate a tiny house?

There isn’t much wall space in a tiny house. My house is an open floor plan 10 foot wide by 35 feet long. I still have a living room, a kitchen and a small hallway to my back office, bathroom, and laundry area, but my bedroom is a loft. Once you take into consideration of the windows and doors in the house, there really isn’t that many places to hang decorations indoors. I stay minimal with a small Christmas tree, some stockings, and a string of lights along the loft railing (going overboard on Christmas lights in a tiny house would be blinding).  There isn’t much storage so I can keep everything in one small box in the woodshop. Not having to spend a lot of time decorating leaves me more time to relax and enjoy myself, have a cup of coffee, make a dozen or so cookies, and still have time to put my feet up…. Ahhhhh 😊

Christmas Trees:

Traditionally I had a real 6-foot Christmas tree that lit up my den. White lights and my son’s creative school ornaments had covered the tree. When my son moved into the house,  I knew that I couldn’t take them all with me and he didn’t have any ornaments, so I surprised him by handing them all down to him. Now my son and his new wife have a big and beautiful Christmas tree and ornament stories to share with their children.  

What do you do for a Christmas tree in a tiny house?

Christmas trees are not only tall, but they are big around which would take up my entire living room. I had started a tradition of buying a small potted Christmas tree and replanting it outdoors in Spring but this year the nurseries are not stocking potted trees. I bought a small 2 foot fiber-optic tree with a bell ornament topper and we’ll just have to figure out something new for next year. It is just a part of the challenges of owning a tiny house. Traditions are making and holding onto memories but you don’t have to lose the memories by changing traditions. When you live tiny, memories that evoke feelings from the heart overcome you more than a large Christmas tree in a tiny house.

Presents… presents… and more presents…:  

In my ‘normal-sized’ house,  the bottom of the tree was lined with presents and at times, they would extend in a big U-shape along the walls and across the front of the fireplace. It took a lot of money, a lot of time wrapping, and a lot of space to fill with all of those presents.

Where do you put presents in a tiny house? How do you wrap them?

In a tiny house space is at a premium so I found that the worktable out in the wood-shop has just enough room to wrap. Since everything inside a tiny house must be multi-functional, the stand under the windows at the end of the house serves as an end-table, litter box concealer, dog toy stand, and Christmas Tree stand, however there still is not much room for presents. They stay outside in the heated wood-shop until Christmas Eve and before we go to bed, we bring them all inside. We have scaled down to 2 presents each but we still fill the stockings full for our pets. Tiny house constraints mean that we have to give more thought into gifting and we now set a low budget. We just don’t have the room to go overboard. An example of this would include the closet space which is at an exceptional all-time low. For this we have to practice the one in/one out rule (get a new one/remove and old one). Since now it doesn’t take much time to wrap or unwrap our gifts, we have more time to sit outside in the hot-tub and enjoy watching the snow fall. I just feel having a little less capitalism in my life has given me a greater appreciation for the thoughtfulness, time and energy in the care of gift exchanging. I can say with a big heart that I am truly blessed.

Holiday gatherings and feasts:

Historically, it was Christmas Eve gatherings at the in-laws and a typical Christmas morning would be to get up, unwrap at our house and then off to ‘wherever’ to do more holiday visiting and more and more unwrapping.

Can you do a Christmas dinner in a tiny house?

No. Entertaining in a tiny house is difficult. Moving didn’t impact this aspect of the holidays for me. I do however have more time to visit family and I find I am spending more time with friends as well. On Christmas day after we spend a short time playing “Christmas”, we spend the rest of the day relaxing on the couch in our pajamas watching multiple TV showings of “A Christmas Story” or going over to his mom’s and watching it there. 😊

Living Tiny…

Living tiny has been challenging but the greatest was challenging my own perspective of what is actually considered ‘big’ in my life. No, it’s not the big house or the big displays of Holiday decorations. I’ve reconsidered the thought of big Christmas trees and how big of an area I actually need to set aside for Christmas Day presents. I still love and enjoy family gatherings but it might not be seeing all of my loved ones at one time. Living tiny for me now means that the big holidays are more about having time to enjoy, relax, and appreciate being blessed with such a big life in such a tiny home. I might not get to see ALL of my family, but having a simpler life means that I have a greater amount of time to see them more often throughout the year which I think helps to actually keep us closer. The presents don’t signify the same things anymore because now the quantity of gifts has been replaced with the thoughtfulness and uniqueness of gifts and giving with meaning under a budget. The holidays of the past are still treasured as memories in my mind and they appreciated from a perspective that allows me to make the comparison with a big heart.

So how do people living in tiny houses celebrate the holidays?  – The same way everyone else does only smaller… and simpler.

Have a BIG wonderful, safe, and loving holiday season (even if it’s tiny).

~Sue 😊