How is your Christmas tree decorated?

This year, we found ourselves with a fairly decent-looking Christmas tree. This is mostly because we didn’t choose it; my aunt gave it to us (she had an extra tree to give from a fundraiser). My parents’ tastes in Christmas trees is a whole 'nother thread.

We finished decorating it last night. And we like it a lot, because it is absolutely beautiful. We did the two things we’ve wanted to do all year: have a color theme, and use baby’s breath.

Our color theme is red, which works nicely with the green of the tree. Because I’m the only one in the house with the patience to do it, I found and detangled a string of red lights, and put it on. Once we were sure they were evenly distributed (I even turned off the living room lights to check), we added the baby’s breath.

My mom got the idea from HGTV, I think. She came home with a huge bundle of it the other day. We cut the bunch into smaller stems, and stuck them into the tree, using the tree’s own branches as a guide. We covered the entire tree with little sprigs of white baby’s breath. When we were done, the tree looked as though it had been out in a very light snow for a little while.

We used ornaments sparingly, and chose only the ones that had red in them. We put on a set of red shiny balls, and a few handmade ornaments with red roses and red ribbon on them. Because our tree has two pine cones still attached to it, we put on four pine cone ornaments. To top it all off, I tied a red velvet bow tie to the topmost branch.

Now all we need are the presents to go under it. :slight_smile:

So how about you? If you don’t have a tree, how do you decorate your home for the holidays?

When I used to have Christmas trees, I did eclectic ornaments - mostly Hallmark and family archival ones that meant something to me.

Currently, our house is too cluttered to have a tree (plus we’re going out of town for the holidays), but that’s my favorite kind…

Eclectic is a good word to describe ours, too. There are three or four significant ornaments - tied to important life events - and the others have been accumulating over the years. Some have been given to or made by our daughter, many are one-of-a-kind that I picked up at after holiday sales, a bunch that look like toys, and a few are ordinary boxed balls. A “decorator” tree would be so out of place in our house - guess we’re an eclectic kinda family when you come right down to it…

Lights! Lots of lights. 1,400 on a nine foot tree. We don’t just do a couple of strands wrapped around the tree. We tuck the lights into the tree and randomly place them.
My tree looks like it is covered in stars.

Because we put so many lights on it we like ornaments that sparkle. Bigger ornaments are tucked into the tree a little. Smaller ornaments are closer to the edges of the branches. We have mostly dark red and silver colors. Glass balls with glitter, little christmas presents wrapped in shinney paper, dark red ribbons, sliver and glitter pinecones, and red and silver bells are most of the ornaments. There are a few special ornaments that go on the tree no matter what. Special ornaments include handmade ornament from my SO’s grandma and one expensive one we pick out each year.

On the top of the tree there is a dark red ribbon and a silver ribbon wrapped together.

I love my christmas tree.

The Christmas Tree is always a cause for small battles among my Dad/me and my Mom. From the years 1982-1995 (my first Christmas in 1982) we had always gone to get a tree, a live one, and decorate it with tons of colored lights, these really tacky ornaments that cost about one cent, a really tacky angel at the top (I never thought they were tacky, but my parents got these ornaments when they were short of money back then), and lots of silver tinsel. I loved how the tree looked because it’s all I ever knew, really. Then in 1995, my mom decides she doesn’t like our tree. It’s “tacky”. So we go out and buy a fake tree, which is horribly skinny, and she puts the white lights on it with new ornaments of red/gold. It does look pretty, don’t get me wrong, but it wasn’t OUR tree. My dad also liked our old decorations. Every Christmas we raise a stink about wanting the old ornaments but we lose. To preserve the memory of our old tree, I continue to put up the tacky cheap ornaments.

From,

Anake

This is our first Christmas together in our new home. On Saturday we went out and bought a tree and some decorations. I remember thinking that we would be packing these decorations up in January and using them year after year.

Our colour theme is gold, copper and amber. Our tree (a 5 foot Nordmann fir) is decorated with big amber coloured baubles, medium sized matt gold and copper baubles, gold apples, pine cones sprayed gold, small matt amber baubles, small gold and amber shiny baubles. There are 40 plain white lights on the tree, and a star made of twigs sprayed gold. There are two ropes of tinsel on the lower branches.

I’m so proud of it, because it’s our first Christmas in our house. There’s still some work to do — we trimmed the lowest branches of the tree so it would fit in the stand, and those brances could be used to make some sort of wreath or spray decoration. Also, the candlesticks haven’t been decorated yet.

I bought a CD of Christmas music at the weekend, too. I’m absolutely full of it this year.

Audrey: What a lovely idea! You know, I’d never thought to put real flowers on the tree.

Zumba: That sounds impressive. I bet you don’t need extra lighting in the room where you have your tree.

With intestines for garland and human organs for ornaments.

It’s quite pretty.

The tradition in our house is to start with a number of white chaser lights (the kind that make that twinkling effect) and clear glass ornaments.
Then, for color, we hang our vast collection of Winnie the Pooh ornaments.

It’s a Pooh tree!
AudreyKakes: I love the idea of baby’s breath!

I’m a goddamn scrooge. I decided no tree this year. Can’t deal with the hassle. No idea where I’ll stick the presents.

I am, however, going to hurriedly fling up some wreaths and maybe our creche tonight. I’m having a little gathering at my house tomorrow and I don’t want the house to seem completely grinchish.

Seeing as how my husband, (SirRohsis), and my first christmas together, we do not have many “keepsake ornaments”, so we opted for a somewhat themed tree as well. we have light blue and white frosted glass ornaments, and instead of the traditional “metallic” garland, we used yards of actual craft ribbon, (the kind with the wire inside on either edge). Lights were used very sparingly, and are white. NO ICE CICCLES!!! (Man, I think my mom is still vaccumming them up at home from when I was a kid!!! We topped it off with a Bride and Groom Angel topper. (It has two angels in flowing white robes, Bride carrying a boquet, Groom with his arm aroud the bride’s waist. There is a small tree sitting in the family room (only about three feet) that has the heirloom/keepsake ornaments that we had individually on it. I imagine as the years go on, we will have to switch places, and make the “theme” tree the small one in the family room, and the “family tree” ornaments will grow as our family does, and we have budding Rembrandts and Picassos!!

Sassy

No theme for us. Eclectic ornaments we have been acquiring over the years. My Ps used to travel a lot, and always brought back ornaments. Lots of lights. We have an artificial tree. Never could realize why our kids’ allergies acted up around December and got better in Jan … Duh!

The tree is in 3 parts, and you keep the lights on it. A real timesaver. The most unusual thing we have on our tree is Mrs D’s old gum wrapper chain which must be 100’ long.

We put it up Sat and, I am very proud to say, I did not yell at anyonne! That’s a first!

This thread is really getting me into the holiday spirit. We had similar battles at my mom’s house as Anake’s: the theme tree vs. the tacky tree. The solution is that we do both. The theme tree is in the foyer, and it has white lights, garlands of red and gold beads, and gold and silver ornaments. One year, instead of garlands, we tied a gold bow to the end of each branch. Took forever but it looked great.

The tacky tree is in the family room, and gets all the ornaments we made at school over the years (“is this a shrinky-dink placenta?” <–actual comment by one of the girlfriends my brother brought home) as well as the colored bubble lights. It also has the cheap ornaments my parents bought for their first christmases when they didn’t have much money. The funny thing is that with the bubble lights and the early 1960s ornaments, the tacky tree now looks like a “cool retro tree.”

The tree at my own house is sort of in the middle. We try to buy an ornament as a momento each time we go on vacation. I have white lights, and Mr. Del is a big fan of tinsel. Since we have a cat, we only decorate the top half of the tree, which makes for an interesting holiday look.

Our tree is a history. A few ornaments made when my kids were little - most ornaments acquired one by one over time because they caught our eye - each one has significance. Guests ooh and aah over our tree because they see us and our lives reflected in the decorations.

I have a major space battle going on in my tree with Star Wars and Star Trek ornaments all over the place. The one ornament that really stands out though is the one of Kenny from South Park. He’s dead of course.

If there is an afterlife, I’m going to have a long conversation with someone important aren’t I?

We just bought a fake tree ("it’s not only like we’re saving money, but we’re saving a tree…and not only once, but saving money and one tree every year!) and it’s great, but a little wide for our apartment, so we took off half the branches, pushed it up against the wall, and used the branches that we took off to flesh out the body. It’s beautiful! I’m definately going to do that every year.

Yes, mice. Almost all the decorations on the tree are cute little rodents. Wooden ones, cross stitched, felt, Mickey and Minnie, Hallmark, (plastic) Swiss cheese stars, all kinds of mice. Skating mice, sledding mice, sleeping mice, Santa mice, mice eating candy and popcorn. There’s enough for at least two trees, so we trade out some every year.

Needless to say, the wife collects mice of all types, and this is the result after over 20 years together. The rest of the house has a definite mouse theme as well. Just a bit obsessive, but it sure makes gift buying easy (as long as I can keep finding new rodents).

Now that I have my own place, I can put up ALL of my ornaments. All 150+ of them. They’re all teddy bears. I also put some of my stuffed bears in the branches, to fill up the holes. Oh, and I have about 800 white lights on the tree too.

It looks pretty good, if I say so myself. I think I’ll take a picture of it.

This is my first Christmas in Brooklyn, and the first tree I’ve ever had that I didn’t get at a tree farm. I only got it last week and already it’s drooping!

I use little colored lights and I also have an eclectic ornament collection. Most of my ornaments are either handmade or have a “hand crafted” look to them. Many of them came from craft shows or Christmas bazaars. Purely by accident, I have many Santas in different styles, including a Santa riding an owl and a Santa sitting on the moon. I also have about ten large crocheted (sp?) snowflakes scattered about. To complement these homey ornaments, I have about a dozen dark frosted balls with glittery designs, and a few other glass or otherwise breakable baubles.

I’m pleased to say that my housemates, who were skeptical, both like the tree, and have complimented my taste in ornaments. Whew!

Since I am currently a bachelor…
My tree this year is going to be a Panty Tree. Now please excuse me, I need to go to the local strip club to pick out my ornaments.