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The Best Lunar New Year Decorations to Bring Good Fortune Into 2024

Prepare for the Year of the Dragon with these indoor and outdoor ideas.

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a patio with lanterns and plants

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Welcoming the start of spring, Lunar New Year is an annual holiday celebrated by many Asian countries and communities around the globe. This year, Lunar New Year, also known as Chinese New Year, begins on February 10 and is celebrated for up to 15 days. Communities celebrate the holiday with a variety of traditions, from throwing dinner parties, giving red envelopes, exchanging meaningful gifts, planning parades and hanging festive and symbolic decorations.

Lunar New Year is a holiday with vivid visuals. Decorations are usually ornate with splashes of red, gold embellishments and lucky symbols, often including the year’s zodiac animal. Twenty-twenty four is the Year of the Dragon, so many decorations will incorporate a dragon motif in playful and majestic ways. The decoration possibilities are endless with this mythical creature that can fly, hang and flutter figuratively and literally.

With so many options for decorating your home for this holiday, we’ve curated some beautiful, useful and affordable Lunar New Year decorations that you can use whether you’re preparing for a small or big celebration. This list includes both evergreen and classic decorations that can be used any Lunar New Year, and those that incorporate this year’s zodiac animal. Whether you’re preparing for 1 or 100, be generous with your decorations: the more luck you spread, the more it will multiply.

1
Easy to Install

Year of the Dragon Window Clings

Year of the Dragon Window Clings

One of the cardinal guidelines of party decorating is to make sure it is easy to install and remove, which will be a breeze with these decorative Chinese New Year window clings. Cute, colorful and reusable, these window clings can also double as wall decals and feature all the good luck symbols of the Year of the Dragon. So simple to apply and peel off, even your youngest decorators can help.

2
All-in-One Decor

61-Piece Chinese New Year Decoration Set

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61-Piece Chinese New Year Decoration Set

If you can't decide what to choose, get it all — which is made easy with this affordable 61-piece set designed to ring in 2024. There's couplet sets, paper lanterns, window sticker paper cuts, red envelopes, door decor and hanging ornaments.

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3
Showstopper

Chinese New Year Dragon Garland

Chinese New Year Dragon Garland

If you’re looking for a piece of decor to wow your guests, look no further than this colorful dragon garland, which stretches 5-feet long and can be easily suspended from any surface. Hang this powerful creature from your door, wall, ceiling or tree for a conversation starter. Cleverly crafted with rich colors, this dragon is made of waterproof material that can be displayed indoors or outdoors and stored for reuse.

4
Great for Crafting

Red Origami Papers

Red Origami Papers

It's tradition to decorate with artistic cuttings made out of paper (obviously for the Spring Festival, red is most common). Get the whole family involved, then tape your creations to doors and windows.

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5
Sustainable Decoration

Live Kumquat Tree

Live Kumquat Tree
Credit: Williams-Sonoma

Believed to bring luck and good fortune (of course!), mandarin, orange and kumquat trees make popular decor during the Lunar New Year. Place one in your doorway during the season to greet guests. This one probably won't sprout fruit for a year or two, but hey, you'll be better prepared with each passing year.

6
Drive Away Bad Luck

Red Lanterns

Red Lanterns
Credit: Reginary

Indoors and out, red lanterns (round and with decorative tassels) are a staple of the Chinese New Year. When hung in front of the door, they're thought to keep bad luck at bay — but don't worry: they're still a symbol of happiness when hung elsewhere. There are a ton of great picks on Amazon, including smaller 10-inch lanterns that require assembly, but this set of six makes decorating easy. The inside is supported by a plastic frame and can be easily folded when the season is over.

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7
Display a Meaningful Message

Door Couplets

Door Couplets
Credit: ShuoArtStudio

Door couplets, most often black ink on red paper, make it easy to paste messages of well-wishes around the front door. These handwritten couplets display lines of poetry and the creator can write in a few different calligraphy fonts, including regular script, clerical script and cursive script. Choose from nine different sets of messages.

8
Bring Good Happiness and Fortune

Chinese Character Fu

Chinese Character Fu
Credit: GoodMamaCrafts

Decorate your space with paper calligraphy that displays the inverted fu Chinese character. "Fu" translates to happiness, luck and good fortune, and placing the character upside is meant to symbolize the luck "pouring out" onto your home and its guests. This one, shown right side up, is made from quality red and metallic gold paper, and it's available in two different sizes: 8" x 8" or 10" x 10."

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9
Great for Gift-Giving

Red Packets

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Red Packets
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Credit: jiebor

The tradition of giving red envelopes dates back to some of the oldest stories about the Chinese New Year. They are typically filled with money, and the red packets (usually decorated with symbols and drawings) are supposed to provide more happiness and luck to the receivers. You can also use the red envelopes as decor, whether hung from a tree like ornaments or folded into origami.

Headshot of Alyssa Gautieri
Alyssa Gautieri
Associate Lifestyle Editor

Alyssa Gautieri (she/her) is the associate lifestyle editor for Good Housekeeping, where she covers all things home and interior design. Prior to joining GH in 2022, she wrote for publications including ELLE Decor, Chairish, BobVila.com, Unique Homes Magazine and LODGING Magazine, in addition to crafting product copy for home brands like BrylaneHome and VIGO Industries.

Headshot of Minhae Shim Roth
Minhae Shim Roth
Freelance Writer & Reporter

Minhae Shim Roth is a writer and reporter based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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