You may have your own favorite way to trim your Christmas Tree but here are some instructions to make the task easier and avoid frustration.
Steps in decorating your Christmas Tree
- Add your tree lights. Starting at the bottom, wrap the lights around the trunk and branches.
- Add garlands starting at the top and working your way down, keeping them evenly spaced.
- Add your ornaments.
- Add your favorite ornaments first, spacing them out so that they take pride of place.
- Add the larger ornaments next
- Add speciality ornaments
- Finally scatter smaller ornaments inbetween the others.
Tips for decorating your Christmas Tree
- Distribute your ornaments by color shape and size so that you do not have clusters of the same type making the tree look unbalanced. If you want to emphasize a particular color or colors make sure that these ornaments are placed to give them emphasis.
- Smaller ornaments can have more impact if they are tied together and placed together on a branch
- Hanging some ornaments closer to the trunk adds depth to your tree.
- Place shinier ornaments where the lights will shine on them the most.
- Consider using beads or ribbons rather than tinsel.
- Tie bows to the top of plain baubles to make them fancier.
Important! Have fun when putting up your tree
If you can, make it a family activity. Get the kids involved. Put on some Christmas music or videos. Have some special Christmas treat food on hand to nibble on. Avoid frustration so that the kids don’t run for cover or hear words you would not normally say in front of them!
How to prevent frustration when trimming your tree
(or “things I have learned from mistakes I have made”)
- Make sure you check to see if your tree lights work before you place them on your tree. Check well before in case you need to go out and buy some new ones.
- Make sure the plug on your lights reaches the power point before you drape them on the tree.
- Protect your tree from the curiosity of cats and small children unless you enjoy decorating your tree more than once a year.
- If you think your tree is not totally stable nail the stand to a square peice of wood or chipboard. Cover this base with wrapping paper or place presents on it to hide it.
- If the tree is still not childproof/animal proof further stabalize it by running wire from the tree to picture hooks on the wall. We finally bought a large solid stand but even this remains nailed to a base.
- Avoid the frustration of tangled lights – that one is guaranteed to, at least temporarily, destroy my spirit of Christmas! For storage, I wind my lights around rolled up bubble wrap. They do not slip off and my lights remain tangle free. I always keep any bubble wrap that I get in parcels during the year for this purpose.
If you would like to watch videos of decorating a tree expertvillage have a good selection on YouTube.