The winter holiday season is, according to designer Jonathan Adler, the one moment of the year when good taste can take a tiny vacation of its own. He has always believed in the Diana Vreeland principle that ‘a little bad taste is like a dash of paprika,’ and nowhere is that truer than during the festive period. December is all the permission he needs to embrace excess with open, jazz-handed enthusiasm. He wants sparkles, he wants joy, he wants rooms that wink at you the moment you enter.
For the time after Christmas Day, people often ask how to decorate ‘properly’ – should this be a change from the lead-up to the 25th, or should you keep the seasonality going? For Jonathan Adler, New Year decor is the time to be playful, nostalgic, a little glam, and completely pleasure-seeking. Twinkling lights, glistening ornaments, eye-popping colors, a dash of fun – it’s all part of the magic. The New Year lead-up is not a design problem to solve but a sensorial playground to revel in, and – in his own words – these are his rules for how to lean in wholeheartedly.
Jonathan Adler’s Guide to Decorating for New Year
‘Bad taste is like a dash of paprika,’ as the inimitable Diana Vreeland once said – and I’ve adopted that as a personal manifesto. A little excess is the secret spice that gives any room instant va-va-voom. And if there is ever a moment to lean into excess, it’s right now, in the build-up to New Year. This is not the season for restraint; this is the season to gild the lily, then give the lily a martini.
For starters, brightly colored lights are an absolute essential. I want them flickering, dancing, practically shimmying across the room. Multicolored, slightly chaotic, joyfully childlike – that’s the energy.
At New Year, I always think you should embrace a sense of wonder. Anything that sparkles, twinkles or catches the light is fair game. I adore tinsel with a kind of evangelical zeal. Look, I’m a Jewish American; I didn’t grow up knowing what it ‘signifies,’ (my British husband tells me there is a snobbery about it over there) but I do know that clinging to your normal, grown-up taste levels during the holidays is the surest path to fun-impediment. Let go. Sparkle more.
Don't remove all your other holiday decorations. Keep the menorah, keep the stockings, keep the tree and keep the ornaments everywhere. The holiday decor comes but once a year and are too fun to have their decorations pulled down for New Year in an attempt to 'grown-up' it up.
I’m also a firm believer in the classic Christmas palette. Green, red and gold is divine – a trio you can really only deploy with abandon once a year. Why deny yourself the nostalgic joy of it? Pile it on. Revel in it.
Your entryway sets the tone, so make it count. I want people to walk in and immediately grasp the vibe: a little more eccentric, a little more glamorous, a little more ‘I didn’t expect Jonathan to go this big but of course he did.’ I’m a chandelier zealot, so I love something hanging in the hall that makes the eye pop on contact – a sort of sparkling overture to the evening ahead.
And let’s not forget that this time of year is a multisensory extravaganza. The house should smell piney and promising the moment someone steps inside. You can scatter cut branches, weave sprigs around the banister, or simply light one of my Pop candles, which smells like festive possibility with a twist of party spirit.
When it comes to entertaining, my golden rule never changes: you can never have too many little chairs. Little pull-up-y, perch-anywhere chairs are the lubricant of chitty-chatty evenings. They let people mingle, gossip, flirt, and generally be charmingly insouciant. And, naturally, the holidays demand a bar cart. Ideally one on wheels – louche, fabulous, mobile, and fully stocked. I personally enjoy pretending I’m a mid-century flight attendant pushing good cheer up and down the room.
The New Year holidays are the moment to stop worrying about being tasteful and start worrying about being joyful. Fun, glamour, sparkle and a tiny soupçon of bad taste – that, to me, is the recipe for a perfect holiday home.
Shop the Jonathan Adler New Year Party Look
Jonathan says candles are key in the holidays, and this scent (essence of crisp winter air) is exactly the 'piney and promising' scent he mentions.
You can never have too many coasters at this time of year and this set feels suitably festive but usable all year round.
Games have had a very glamorous glow up recently, and they make such a nice piece of decor, as well as an activity for your New Year party.
It's time to add sparkle wherever you can – even to your glassware. And right now this set is a steal with 50% off.
A bar cart is an essential in Jonathan's mind, and as he says, better make it one on wheels.
Multi colored lights are key to a happy holiday home, and what better than 200 of them on a string?
Ultimately, as Jonathan Adler says, New Year's decorating is about joy – unfiltered, unedited, unapologetic joy. It’s your chance to create a mood that wraps people up the moment they walk in, a little world where glamour meets nostalgia and everyone feels instantly festive.
His cry asks that you forget restraint; this is your moment to sparkle harder, scent the air richer, and indulge in the kind of delicious excess you’d never allow in June. If it makes you smile, keep it. If it twinkles, even better. The holidays come just once a year, so why not make your home as fun, fabulous, and delightfully over-the-top as the season itself?
