Recreating Jaclyn Smith's Christmas Front Door Only Takes Three Classic Essentials

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A wreath. A strand of garland. And two poinsettias. That's all it took for Jaclyn Smith to create a classic Christmas look around her front door in 2024. The former "Charlie's Angels" star doesn't overpower the front door of her Georgian colonial home, a style of architecture known for featuring a fancy front door flanked by tall columns and symmetrical layouts. Instead, the simplicity of Smith's Christmas designs allows the bones of the front door to shine through while still capturing the holiday spirit and inviting visitors to come in and stay a spell.

If you have your heart set on upgrading your front door at Christmas like Jaclyn Smith did, these are some of the elements you'll want to work with. At the center of Smith's display was the large pine bough wreath that adorned the front door. To create one of your own, you'll need something similar that fits your front door and outdoor decor. On Smith's wreath, that meant highlighting an enormous red bow and other complementary, but simple, holiday elements. Two poinsettias flanked the actor's front door, echoing the deep red of the wreath's bow. She put those red-leafed plants in plain terracotta pots, and those potted plants got some extra framing, thanks to the lengthy boughs of pine garland that encircled the style icon's front entrance. 

Each element of Jaclyn Smith's front door Christmas decor was pretty enough to stand on its own. However, the effect of the whole was greater than the sum total of all of the parts. When you recreate this Christmas look, you'll want to have this effect as well.

Most interior designers will look for a way to create a focal point in a space – something that immediately catches the eye – whether they're creating something for the inside of the home or the front porch. In the case of Jaclyn Smith's porch Christmas decor, the focal point of her holiday decorating efforts was the wreath on the door. It was very large, taking up almost the full top half of the door, putting it solidly in the category of the main accent or focal point.

And just as a display needs a focal point, like the wreath, it's also fair to say that the focal point itself needs one. On Smith's creative Christmas decoration, there were two elements that became the focal points, the gigantic bow at the bottom of the wreath and the hidden Santa peeking out from behind the red bow. To make them the focal points, the wreath followed the 60-30-10 rule of color in design. That is, 60% or so of the color of the piney circle was green. Thirty percent was red. And about 10% was gold. 

The bigger color features, like the bow, the Santa, and all of that greenery, were balanced out by the clusters of gold Christmas bulbs. The gold dots look pretty without making the wreath look too busy. This is mostly because there were only a few clusters of them and since they weren't bright like the red bow and Santa figurine, they don't compete for attention. Rather, they complement the main visual points on the wreath, making them stand out all the more.

How well you transform your front door for the holidays will depend on a couple of factors, including the weather where you live. For example, Jaclyn Smith lives in Beverly Hills, California, which means it might be warm enough for her to keep poinsettias on the front porch at Christmastime, at least, in some years. However, if you live in Madison, Wisconsin, or Boise, Idaho, live poinsettias on the porch are probably out of the question. You may, instead, need to go with something like the Nearly Natural Store's Artificial Lush Poinsettia Arrangement if you'd like to have a potted poinsettia plant on each side of your front door, like Smith's arrangement had. The man-made plants look real and can be repotted in a terracotta pot if you'd like your display to look more like "Charlie's Angel" star's decor. 

The other option you have is to substitute the poinsettia for another plant, like potted holly. Holly is definitely Christmas-y and is evergreen, even in winter. And while holly doesn't have big bursts of red like the poinsettias do, the red berries are usually plump and a welcome sight in the cold of winter. 

Finally, one of the reasons why Smith's front door display looked so pulled together is because it was literally framed by a pine bough garland. If you're remaking this look at home, you want to use long garlands to wrap around your front door, which is what Smith used. Weave some white fairy lights throughout to light it up once your winter nights turn dark.