How to Decorate a Mantel with a TV Above It for Christmas

I adore the magic of a beautifully decorated Christmas mantel—especially when it sits above a crackling fire, filling the room with a warm glow. But when a TV occupies prime mantel real estate – like it does at my house – creating a festive look that doesn’t obstruct the screen can be challenging! Luckily, you can still capture that cozy holiday feel while keeping the TV functional.

How to Decorate a Mantel with a TV Above It for Christmas

The basic steps to decorating a Christmas mantel with a TV are simple, but you can tweak and make changes with the decor you choose, as you’ll see with our two Christmas mantel versions below. 

2. Start with a garland

The first piece you want to put down is the main garland. Stretch it across the length of the mantel and make any necessary adjustments to the individual pieces. 

Or swag it across the front of the mantel, like our finished mantel below. That really keeps the sensors clear. (Unfortunately, it also allows the cables to show – but my family is happier to not have to do even mild gymnastics to control the tv! And sometimes function beats looks.)

3. Add stocking hangers

If you will be hanging stockings on your mantel, add the hangers after the garland. This way you can get the spacing correct before the next steps. If you’d like, go ahead and add the stockings now so you can get a feel for the colors and textures of the space.

Or you can group the stocking together. This works well when they’re empty and not as well once you start to fill them.

For the shiplap mantel below, I grouped the stockings on one side of the mantel, hung on a couple of thumbtacks. You could use 3M hooks if you don’t want to damage your mantel. Ours is a legit rustic old barn beam, so I don’t mind sticking it with thumbtacks now and again.  

4. Place string lights

In my opinion, fifty percent of the magic of Christmas decorating is in the string lights. I love to add them to the mantel to add to the lovely glow of the fire – or just to turn on for that glow when it’s too warm for the fireplace to be on.

Weave an appropriate length of string lights in behind the stocking hangers, and around the garland on the mantel. Use battery-powered lights if there’s no outlet on or near your mantel. (I obviously added the stockings here too.)

Or you could add battery-powered candles as I did with our shiplap mantel.

Truthfully, I wanted to add string lights to the garland, but I gave the last operational battery-powered strand in the house to my daughter for her room and I was done spending money so I didn’t want to order more. 

You don’t want to use real candles as that would be bad for the tv. 😉 

5. Fill in any gaps in the garland with greenery sprigs and sprays

Inevitably there will be gaps in the garland. Now that the stocking hangers and string lights are in place, you can fill in the remaining gaps with sprigs and sprays of greenery.

For the shiplap fireplace, after playing around with options, I settled on two simple eucalyptus stems – one tucked into each side of the garland – for a little more variety without overdoing it. 

6. Add additional embellishments, as desired

If you’d like, you can add things like pine cones berry picks, or faux deer antlers into the garland to fill the spaces out even more!

Or you can add simple striped ribbons (affiliate link) and a homemade pom-pom garland like I did this year.