Scandinavian Christmas wall art: hang something that stays up after January

In Sia Siamos's Hummer og Vin, candles lean at friendly angles over a lobster on a blue platter, lemons, vine tomatoes and glasses of red wine, with hands reaching in from the edges. Nobody's put a bow on it, and it's still the most Christmas-feeling picture in the gallery. That's the idea here: let one picture carry the mood, and keep it on the wall when the tinsel goes back in the loft.

Why hang art instead of more decorations?

Decorations have a season. They go up in early December and by the second week of January they look tired. A print does the same job of making the room feel looked after, then carries on through the darkest months without needing to be taken down.

It also means the room isn't bare in January. Once the decorations are boxed up, a picture chosen for warmth is still doing its job in February.

Which prints feel like a Scandinavian Christmas?

You don't need snowmen or reindeer. Look for the things a winter room is actually about: a table, a light in the window, something to look at while it's dark outside.

Candlelit tables. Siamos paints still life, food and everyday moments, and her table scenes suit a dining room or kitchen in December. Hummer og Vin is a long, generous evening held mid-toast. Vinkveld, a wine evening, is thicker and moodier: a glass of red, olives, dark grapes and tomatoes against checked tiles, with the cork already adrift. Morgenlevering is gentler, a breakfast table with coffee, croissants and pink carnations in a red vase, lit by a window. It's the one for Christmas morning, and for every other morning too.

A lit window in the snow. Markus Naarttijärvi's photograph Boathouses in winter is a lit window and a lone streetlamp in a dark, snow-heavy night, with the falling snow catching the light and everything else left in shadow. It's cold outside and warm inside the frame, which is the feeling you want in a living room in December. His other winter work is gathered on the photography page.

A small house with a door. Hedvig Wallin's Small House Big Ocean is a little house on a rock in a sea of rolling waves, drawn only in black ink line. The eye keeps coming back to the one door and its handful of windows. It's calm, and it hangs well beside anything with colour in it.

Where should it go?

Put the picture where you'll see it in the evening, because that's when a winter room is used. A few places that work:

• Opposite the sofa or beside a lamp. It's the wall you look at in the evening, with a warm light on it.
• Above the dining table. A table scene over a table is a little obvious in the best way. Guests look up, see the candles on the wall and the candles on the table, and it all hangs together.
• At the end of a hallway. A print at the far end gets seen every time you come in, whatever the weather.
• Beside a window. A photograph of a lit window is a good neighbour for a real one.

Candles and fairy lights give off reflections, so if you frame the print under glass, look at it from your usual seat after dark before you commit to a spot. If you're building a group of pictures, the gallery wall planner helps you test the layout, and the Scandinavian gallery wall guide covers spacing.

What does light have to do with it?

More than you'd think. Sweden.se describes Lucia as a bearer of light in the dark Swedish winters, and says the candlelit Lucia procession on 13 December is one of the country's more exotic-looking customs. You don't need a procession to take the point. In a dark month, a room works better when it has a few clear sources of warmth and something worth looking at, and a picture can be one of them.

What about the rest of the room?

Keep the rest quiet and let the print lead. A bowl, a candle, a wool throw and a couple of plain branches will do more than a wall of decorations, and none of it needs to come down in January. If you want something on the shelf, the Nordic botanical prints article shows how a table full of food reads on a wall, and the Norwegian words behind the prints explains what Vinkveld and its neighbours are called.

If you're ordering for December

Prints are made to order and shipped worldwide, and delivery is charged at checkout. Check the delivery page for how production and delivery work, and the estimate shown at checkout for your address, before you decide it can be on the wall in time.

Then pick the one you'd want to see when the lamps are on and it's already dark outside. The Scandinavian wall art page has the rest.