‘Tis the season of spring registration, final exams, and major stress. It’s also time to start decorating the dorm room for the holidays. For college students, the limited resources and space available can present a challenge. Decorating the dorm doesn’t necessarily have to be expensive, however. Take a break from studying for finals and deck out the dorm with some seasonal spirit, using these budget-friendly ideas as inspiration!
1. Get creative with your dorm room door.
Decorate your door like a fireplace, or wrap it up like a present! You can use leftover construction or wrapping paper. Some other ideas are a gingerbread house, a snowman, or the Polar Express. If you run out of room on your door for all of your ideas, you can also decorate your fridge.
2. Make your own Christmas tree.
Professor assigned textbooks that the class never used? Wipe the dust off those textbooks and build your own Christmas tree! At least you’ll get some use out of them this year.
3. Or build a tree on the wall.
You can save more space by using lights and ornaments on the wall than you would buying a full-size Christmas tree. You can also make your own glitter galaxy ornaments.
4. Jazz up your window.
Hang ornaments and ribbons from the top of your window, or fill it with festive gel clings! It’ll definitely stand out amongst the competition.
5. Hang some paper snowflakes.
Find some designs online or come up with your own, and cut out some cute paper snowflakes! You can hang them on the ceiling or make a curtain of snowflakes to hang from the top of the window. This is the closest to real snow that some of us in the South will get to see.
6. Light some scented candles.
Scents such as cinnamon, pine, peppermint, and gingerbread are perfect for bringing any dorm room to life! Just check to make sure it’s all right with your college’s housing regulations to have an open flame inside the dorm. If not, you can still get into the holiday spirit with these reed diffusers, or these festive plug-in air fresheners.
7. Stick a piece of mistletoe in your doorway.
Now you’ll finally have an excuse to kiss that cute boy/girl across the hall. And you don’t have to blame it on the spiked eggnog later. Otherwise, you can have fun with it when your friends come through your door.
8. Play some Christmas music.
Turn on the Pandora Christmas station and enjoy listening to Frank Sinatra, Michael Bublé, or Pentatonix get into the Christmas spirit. Just make sure to blast it loud enough and have a dance party with your friends, so your downstairs neighbors can also join in on the fun!
9. Create your own wreath.
This is a creative alternative to the ready-made wreaths sold in stores, if you don’t like any of them! You can personalize them by sticking ornaments and anything else you want onto a straw wreath form.
10. Finally, HANG LIGHTS EVERYWHERE.
