We hear you. You’ve decked your real-life halls with boughs of holly before December 1st even arrived and now you’re “fa la la-ing” to yourself because you’re still in the festive spirit with nothing left to decorate! It happens to us all, right? … Right? No? Just me? Ooookay then.
Just in case you are a holiday nut like me and actually were looking for an excuse to do more decorating, we’ve got you covered! Here are our top 10 holiday decorating tips for The Sims 4 to turn your Sims’ home into a magical Winterfest wonderland!
Put reindeer on the roof
The free holiday DLC comes with an adorable pair of wooden reindeer to decorate your front lawn… but it doesn’t have to be on your lawn! Why not put 4 of these up on the roof using the bb.moveobjects on cheat and the 9 key to raise them to the desired height? It will look like Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen are on the rooftop ready to help Father Winter deliver his presents!
Hang pinecones over windows, doors, and archways
There’s another handy piece of décor in the free holiday DLC! A cluster of pinecones with evergreen branches on either side make for a lovely rustic holiday wall piece. Place these on top of windows, door, and archways all over the house to give every room a touch of the wintery outdoors over the holiday season.
Yes, you CAN put a wreath on the front door!
Not only can you put a wreath on the front door, but Sims can still use the front door, too! I love BIG wreaths so my favourite to use is the one from the free holiday DLC but the game has no shortage of wreaths to choose from if you own the Seasons expansion pack. Use the bb.moveobjects on cheat to put a wreath on your front door to complete the holiday look. The only quirk with this décor tip is that the wreath will stay in place when Sims open and close the door so it will look like it’s floating in midair while the door is open. Sims will just walk right through the wreath. This doesn’t bother me since the door is usually closed. If this doesn’t bother, you, either, go ahead and give it a try!
Wreaths are great on windows, too!
You can also use the bb.moveobjects on cheat to put wreaths on windows! It depends on the size and shape of the window, of course, but many windows in the game look fantastic with a wreath displayed on it. It adds an extra level of detail to your exterior decorating and really makes your home look like the subject of a winter postcard.
Swap out the dining table and fireplace
You could decorate your mantelpiece and dining room table with holiday decorations… but why do that when there are already pre-decorated fireplaces and dining room tables in the game? Both the free holiday DLC and the Seasons expansion come with a holiday-themed fireplace and an 8-Sim dining table. These festive objects look much better than if you had plopped some garland on top of a regular fireplace or dining table and called it a day.
Centrepieces make a difference
Every surface in your home can benefit from a centrepiece for the holidays! Accent tables, coffee tables, dining tables, fireplace mantels, absolutely everything will look better with a festive centrepiece. My personal go-to are some of the holiday candles but there are lots of fantastic holiday trinkets you can use as centrepieces. Glass snowflakes, mason jar snow globes, nutcrackers, and more. Just make sure your centrepiece isn’t so large that it overpowers the whole table. Proportional centrepieces add the most charm.
Garlands, garlands everywhere!
Empty section of wall? Put a garland there. Need something to hang below a picture frame? Garland. Looking to dress up your windows a little more? More garland. Garlands are the most versatile holiday decoration. Hang them up outdoors, indoors, on walls, under windows and picture frames, on kitchen backsplashes and cabinets, just about anywhere and everywhere! Our biggest tip with garland is to keep things proportional. Don’t use the giant garlands in tiny spaces. Go with the smaller garland instead. Symmetry is also key, especially outdoors. If you’re adorning windows with garland, make sure every window has one. Keep your garland patterns consistent.
Remove or rearrange furniture to showcase the décor
It can be tough to fit a huge tree into a tiny living space but don’t be afraid to temporarily rearrange the living room furniture to make space for the tree and maintain functionality. My Sims family has a spot by the fireplace they put their tree every year. Normally, a rocking chair and knitting bag sit there but when winter comes around, the rocking chair and knitting bag go into household storage and gets replaced by the tree. If there’s just no fitting a full-size tree into your tiny home no matter how much rearranging you do, consider this neat little trick; use the bb.moveobjects on cheat, then select a full size tree and size it down to miniature size with the [ key. Then use the 9 key to raise it up onto any surface and voila! An instant tabletop holiday tree!
Focus on communal areas of the home
If you have a really big house to decorate for the holiday season, decorating can feel like a daunting task but it doesn’t have to be! While you can definitely go crazy decorating every single room of the home if you want to, you can save a lot of time by only decorating areas of the house your Sims’ guests are going to see. Focus on highly visible and communal gathering spaces in the home; the front exterior of the house, the dining room, and the living room. Everywhere else you can probably pass on if you want to save yourself hours of tedious decorating.
Don’t forget the front lawn!
What would Winterfest be without tacky plastic lawn ornaments? Don’t forget to spruce up your front lawn with glowing snowpals, those adorable wooden reindeer we mentioned earlier, and tall nutcrackers! It will give your house that retro mid-century holiday look. Or if you’re more into the hipster holiday look, maybe skip the fluorescent lawn ornaments and stick to pinecones, chalkboard pictures, and mason jar snow globes.
Do you have any Sims holiday decorating tips for us? Share them with us in the comments or come chat with us on social media!
Happy Holidays, Simmers!
Wait, wait, wait, a university expansion pack comes with occult gameplay? Yup! Sure does! Looking for some sci-fi occult gameplay? You’ll want to pick up Discover University for the addition of servos! Servos are humanoid robots that are fully playable Sims. They can be built at the robotics workstation by Sims skilled in the Robotics skill. Once brought to life, Servos become a playable member of the household and can do almost anything a real Sim can do. Except Try for Baby and anything involving water. Water will cause Servos to break down. Servos can receive upgrades that allow them to autonomously perform different tasks. They can become your handyman, maid, nanny, and even your personal bodyguard! They can also learn to become more efficient over time. If you want to play with robots, pick up Discover University.
While Paranormal Stuff doesn’t come with a new occult type, it still adds a lot of spooky goodness to your game! Sims can live in haunted houses where playful and mischievous spectres will either bless your Sims with paranormal goodies or unleash misery upon them. Sims can host seances and build the Medium skill. Sims skilled in matters of the paranormal can get a Paranormal Investigator’s license which will allow them to join the Paranormal Investigator freelance career! Visit other Sims’ homes to rid them of pesky spirits and all things that go bump in the night for handsome rewards. If living in a haunted house or becoming a Paranormal Investigator has always been your dream, this is the pack for you!
Like Paranormal Stuff, Spooky Stuff does not come with an occult type but it does offer some pretty great décor and costumes to elevate your occult gameplay. Dress your Sims up as witches, pirates, superheroes, gladiators, faeries, zombies, and more. Throw Spooky Parties to impress your friends. Carve pumpkins and get the plumbob scared out of you by a candy bowl that comes with a trick along with a treat and deck out your house with glowing spiders, cauldrons with a ghost light show, fog-emitting gravestones and all manner of other spooky goodies. Oh, and speaking of goodies, you can also make zombie cakes and spooky cookies to serve at your next Spooky Party.
We wouldn’t really recommend the Build/Buy catalogue, CAS catalogue, or the world of Evergreen Harbour from Eco Lifestyle for historical play but Eco Lifestyle has a lot of gameplay that makes it perfect for your historical Sims. Sims can raise a variety of insects in insect farms and harvest them for food and fuel. They can craft candles using wax and dyes. Grow soybeans to turn into candle wax or harvest beeswax from beehives if you own the Seasons expansion. Build community spaces where Sims can come together to craft, garden, or sell their homemade wares. And if your Sims are excellent stewards of the land, they can turn their eco footprint green which will offer benefits and positive moodlets to all the Sims living in the neighbourhood. It pairs really nicely with packs like Cottage Living.
Outdoor Retreat is probably one of the best packs for rustic and historical gameplay! Not only does it come with so much furniture in stone and weathered wood textures but it offers plenty of activities for Sims to enjoy off-the-grid, like horseshoes, campfires, stargazing, and cloudgazing. The Herbalism skill can be great for playing a healer from ye olden days, too. Have them gather herbs and berries to brew up tinctures and remedies to treat all kinds of common ailments in Sims. It’s really a great pack that I use a lot in my medieval builds.
Maybe the distant past isn’t really your thing. Maybe you’re more interested in decades. In that case, you might like Paranormal Stuff, which has a Build/Buy catalogue reminiscent of the early 1900s up to the 1920s. The perfect crossover between the Victorian period and the modern age, Paranormal Stuff is full of odd and quirky antiques to clutter up your vintage home. Floral patterned wallpaper, ornate wooden floor designs, and curved edges give this stuff pack a distinctly vintage feel.
Apart from the rocking chair itself that this pack comes with, we can’t really say the Build/Buy catalogue is good for historical saves. However, knitting very much suits an older way of life and provides both a fun and practical activity for Sims in your historical worlds to enjoy. I love to put a rocking chair and knitting basket in my medieval homes so my Sims can earn a living from their craft or provide their family with warm, cozy things to wear.
Couldn’t get enough of the 1920s with Paranormal Stuff? Vintage Glamour Stuff’s got your back! Unlike Paranormal Stuff which focuses on the 1900s up to the 1920s, Vintage Glamour Stuff dives right into the midst of the Roaring Twenties’ art nouveau, avantgarde style. Clean lines, geometric shapes, and lots of glitz and shine are at the core of this pack. It’s a fun, colourful pack that’s perfect for your wealthy Sims living in the Jazz Age.
Care to fast-forward a few decades? Sure, no problem! You can do that with Bowling Night Stuff. Harken back to a mid-century retro style with this stuff pack stuffed with plenty of funky patterns, rounded furniture pieces, and bright, neon colours! Seriously, your eyes will be assaulted with neon everything. Of course, we can’t forget about the actual bowling that this pack comes with as well. Hit the bowling lanes in your finest retro attire and relive the days of swing dancing and drive-in theatres… without the swing dancing or drive-in theatres. But there’s bowling!
