Festive round-up December 2025
It’s time to dust off your advent calendar and in our latest design round-up, the Ingenious Design team shares a selection of recent design news that has a distinctly festive feel to get you in the mood!
Festive lights and window displays
We love it when the Christmas lights and window displays go up, brightening up the dark days at the end of the year and getting us in the mood for some festive shopping. There are some lovely displays on our doorstep in nearby Lewes, the most hotly anticipated of which in the local community is homeware store, Closet & Botts consistently beautiful Christmas window.
In London, Oxford Street’s 5,000 stars and the winged spirits of Regent Street were lit up in early November. As always there are colourful and creatively dressed windows at Liberty, Fortnum & Mason and Selfridges, the latter transformed into a Disney wonderland. Also worth making for are elegant displays in the Burlington and Royal Arcades.
The big Christmas ads
Most of the big festive ads dropped last month and John Lewis is always the one to beat. This year it didn’t disappoint with an ad by creative duo, Ollie Agius and Pete Ioulianou, featuring Alison Limerick’s 90’s banger ‘Where Love Lives’ reimagined by Labrinth. The action centres on a music loving father and son, exploring how a thoughtful gift can speak louder than words.
From Tesco’s ‘imperfect’ Christmas, Aldi’s annual adventures of Kevin the Carrot, Sainsbury’s reunion with the BFG to Coca Cola’s AI offering, our favourite at Ingenious has to be cute Waitrose mini rom com featuring Keira Knightly and Joe Wilkinson falling for each other at the cheese counter.
Royal Mail Christmas stamps
The stamps people will be putting on their Christmas cards this year were revealed by Royal Mail on 4 November. The five stamps feature scenes of the Nativity and have been illustrated by award-winning artist Paula Doherty.
Paula Doherty illustrates, paper cuts and is a fledgling paper engineer. Inspired by childhood holidays and myths, she studied at Chelsea. She began illustrating children's books for her son. Her process involves sketching to Photoshop for books, a scalpel for paper cuts and a mix for paper engineering.
Best advent calendar for 2025
The history of the advent calendar began in 19th-century Germany with families using chalk marks or candles to count down to Christmas. The first commercially printed calendar with 24 doors was created by Gerhard Lang in the early 1900s. Over time, these evolved from religious pictures to include gifts, with chocolate-filled versions appearing in the 1950s and gaining widespread popularity.
In our opinion, the best chocolate advent calendar on offer this year is from Hotel Chocolat. Compact and stylish, with a message behind each door and different Christmas-themed chocolates, it’s delicious, classy and festive!
Top decorating trends
If you’re after a change of style, we’ve picked out some cool Christmas decorating trends for 2025.
The autumnal aesthetic nicely bridges the gap between Halloween and Christmas. Think russet and cinnamon tones, twinkling fairy lights and rustic and woodland themes, with fabric mushrooms and pumpkins, fox and owl baubles, it’s a response to increasing enthusiasm for Christmas decorating earlier in the season.
Bow mania is here! Big, bold, colourful, stripy bows and ribbons tied to trees, wreaths, or adorning dining chairs, mirrors and staircases make a serious style statement.
Food baubles are on the menu too – from bagels to baked bean tins, glass, felt and ceramic, 2025’s food baubles bring personality to your tree.
In contrast to traditional red and gold schemes, there’s a black and white monochrome Christmas trend that offers a sophisticated take on festive minimalism for design-conscious decorators who favour restraint and refinement.
And finally, at the opposite end of the scale, there’s Kitschmas, the over-the-top trend for maximalists, with quirky retro motifs and flamboyant ultra-bright décor to dial up the festive cheer.
So there you have it, our December round-up is complete. Enjoy the festive season!