Home Stratosphere readers have been voting on Christmas decorating: a heart or a thumbs-down under every photo in our holiday articles, from grandma’s-house Christmases to mantel mistakes. We’ve pulled it into one report: 26,503 votes from 5,031 readers on 886 photos, plus the reasons readers gave.
Farmhouse and traditional won; modern lost
Farmhouse (63%) and traditional (61%) Christmas rooms drew the most hearts. Scandinavian (39%) and modern (35%) rooms drew the fewest, and the gap held when we compared each photo with the others in the same article.
Warm beats cool
Warm-toned rooms drew 58% hearts; cool-toned ones 35%. Terracotta and red accents led the accent colours (77% and 69%), lamp-lit rooms beat bright ones (62% vs 55%), and when readers gave a reason for a heart, “Feels warm / inviting” came first.
Nostalgia won, and readers agree on the mistakes
Our grandma’s-house Christmas article drew 84% hearts, against 52% for new decorating ideas. The photos in our mistakes articles drew just 19%: readers agreed that decorations at one height, Christmas decor clashing with everyday decor and mixed warm and cool bulbs don’t work. “Too busy / cluttered” was the most common reason for a thumbs-down.
The full report
The Christmas Decor Report pools the photos by style, colour temperature, accent colour, light, wood tone, era and room, ranks the most- and least-loved ideas, covers the mistakes readers agree on and shows why readers voted the way they did. It includes the full dataset.
Get the full report at StatwrenHow we did this
- Readers tapped a heart or a thumbs-down under each photo in 25 of our Christmas decorating articles between Aug 30, 2026 and Nov 5, 2026. One vote per reader per photo.
- Votes are anonymous: no names, emails or accounts. Readers were reacting to photos, not their own homes.
- Percentages are the share of hearts. Traits such as place in the house and era the room reads as were read from each photo; article groupings are ours.
- More on how we collect reader data: How our reader data works.