Christmas Tree Decorating Ideas

About Christmas Tree Decorating

Whether or not you already have some Christmas tree decorating ideas up your sleeve, rule number one of Christmas tree decorating is take a deep breath and let go of the stress! Christmas tree lights equal a guaranteed fight in most houses, and nothing beats coming home with a tree that is five feet too tall for your house that you need to go after with a chain saw before you can even get it in the door. A little bit of simple planning and organization will help you put your ideas into action and enjoy stress free Christmas tree decorating. These ideas will help you smooth out the bumps in the road:

• When you put away your Christmas lights and ornaments, organize, organize, organize. You can get great storage containers designed for your Christmas gear at Target and Wal-Mart – for good prices on these containers, pick them up on your post-Christmas bargain shopping spree. Too late to organize for these year? Make sure next year is a different story.

• Check the lights before you put them on the tree.

• Before you buy any tree, artificial or real, know how high your ceilings are.

Christmas Tree Decorating Ideas

Now comes the fun part – picking the perfect Christmas decorations to make the perfect tree. These tips will help you decorate a tree you’ll love putting presents under:

Funky Trees

Don’t think you are tied to sticking with a regular old green Christmas tree. It IS acceptable sometimes to step outside of the traditional and funk things up a little bit with something like a white tree. All white Christmas trees can look stunning in a contemporary home, and they can also help completely a kitschy retro cool Christmas decorating scheme. Blue, white, and silver are becoming as common at Christmas as red and green, and using these cool Christmas colors with a white tree can really look great. However, if your home is decorated in a more traditional style, proceed with caution – this kind of tree could easily look out of place.

Old World Christmas

If you want a Christmas tree that looks like it stepped off the pages of a Victorian novel, then an old world style Christmas tree might be right for you. Old world style decorating is associated with dark, rich colors, and going with a deep red and gold theme for your tree decorating will help pull the look off. Go for plain red (almost maroon, rather than bright red) and gold (again, not bright gold, but muted, almost tarnished looking gold) bulbs for your tree – using these bulbs as the main ornaments is a good way to go. White Christmas tree lights are a must for an old world Christmas tree. To give you a tree a more authentic Victorian design, look for Christmas tree lights that look like mini candles – in Victorian times, real candles were used for tree lights, so these mini candle lights will give you that look without the fire hazard! To complete your look, red and gold bows can be scattered around the tree, along with strings of red and gold garland.

A Country Christmas

What could make everyone want to come home for the holidays more than a charming country Christmas? If your home is kitted out in country style design year round, you can easily incorporate this style into your tree decorations. Handmade ornaments that bring back happy family memories look great on Country design inspired Christmas trees, as does garland made of popcorn, candy canes, or cranberries. Ornaments that have seen better days shine on a Country Christmas tree because they have that warm, lived in look that is associated with Country decorating. Small tartan bows also make great additions to these kinds of trees. White lights or colored lights? Anything goes on a Country Christmas tree, and this is one case in which you don’t have to be shy about how many ornaments to put on the tree. Accessorize away!

Your Favorite Christmas Tree Looks

What is your best Christmas tree decorating tip? Share your stories of Christmas tree decorating by leaving a comment.