Excellent! You’ve chosen a beautiful living tree and brought it home but now have the task of decorating it – where to start? Easy, just follow these tips and in an hour or two you’ll have a tree to be proud of.
1. Give yourself plenty of space to work around your tree.
2. Check your lights work before putting them on the tree then work your way up from the bottom the whole time pushing your fairy lights well into the tree near the trunk and out towards the tips of the branches. There’s nothing worse than a tree that has all the lights on the outside tips of the tree in a spiral, so unimaginative! Once done, turn them on and check it from all angles so make sure the lights are evenly spread around, it’s easier to adjust and fill in gaps now than when the baubles are on the tree.
3. Next add anything with length, eg. Tinsel, garlands, beads etc. Again hang them from one level to another and push some tinsel into the trunk to give depth so you don’t end up with a spiral.
4. Baubles next. Hang the largest and heaviest on the strongest branches. If you have a variety of shapes and colours then make sure they are mixed up, try to avoid having similar colours and shapes close together. Hang the smallest and lightest decorations at the end to fill in gaps and on the smallest branches.
5. Finally place your tree topper, whether it is a star, fairy or glass ornament make sure it’s an appropriate size and style for the top of your tree.
If you’d like a theme but don’t know where to start then consider the following options:
• Go with one or two colours in the same size baubles, or one colour but mix frosted and glossy baubles.
• Rustic wooden ornaments and tartan ribbons and bows then add some small bunches of berries to finish the look (be careful of poisonous berries if you have small children or animals who may decide to eat them).
• A minimalist tree with just some white fairy lights and nothing else.
• This year’s fashion is for non-traditional ornaments in the shape of sprigs of broccoli, beef burgers, flamingos, lobsters and ice cream cones to name a few!
• Nordic themed trees are always popular, think natural materials in traditional shapes eg. Christmas gnomes made out of felt, straw goats, red and white hearts and starts made from wood or felt and gingerbread shapes on a string to hang through your tree.
• Or you could go all out for the traditional look with retro glass baubles and wooden ornaments in every colour and size. Lots of colours, shapes, tinsel and coloured fairy lights to make your tree splendid with twinkling, bejewelled items to catch the light and is pure fun.
Whatever your chosen style, we hope you have fun decorating your tree and have a fabulous time over the Christmas period.
