I would go with white. You can always hang up decorations to make your walls look festive.
As for the kitchen cabinets: you could update them by getting thin plywood made to measure, and then glue it on, carefully. Then you can do anything you want to the cabinets, paint them, or decoupage them (love that technique on serving trays too). Just cover the paper up with three coats of varnish and you are good to go! ... View related article.
Screw the bottom half to the underside of a shelve, then you can store lightweight stuff in the top half (which now technically becomes to bottom half :) ) ... View related article.
