Christmas really starts when you are decorating your tree and it is really recommended to get into the right spirit. Whether you are bringing in a natural evergreen or took your artificial tree down from the attic, here are some guidelines for making the whole experience a little less chaotic.
Choosing the Christmas tree.
If your Christmas tree is going to look really good or not could depend on the sort of tree you choose. There are actually some kinds of trees that are easier to decorate than others. Pine is the sort of evergreen tree that is most likely going to lose its needles quickly and turn into a pathetic stump. When it comes to holding Christmas ornaments, the best species of trees are firs and spruces. Their branches are sturdy and do not bend under the weight of a glass Christmas ornament. Of course, artificial trees are perfectly fine as well.
If you chose for decorating a real tree, make sure it is fresh. When buying the tree, test the freshness of the tree by bending the branches. A good and fresh tree will bend a bit and will easily support your Christmas ornaments. If the branches snap when you try to bend it, don’t buy the tree. This tree is not fresh, will probably not support your decorations and is also very likely to drop its needles very soon.
Preparing the decorations.
Start with the Christmas mat or skirt. They can hide the stand, decorate and catch dropped needles all the same time. It is a very useful part of your Christmas decorations. You can’t slip a Christmas tree skirt over the tree’s head and lifting up a decorated tree is not the best advice either. So, this is the first step of decorating your tree, before the other decorations.
It is very likely that last year you just stripped everything off the tree and threw it in a box. Perhaps your Christmas tree lights are all knotted up. This is a bad start. The old saying is “as it begins, so it ends and so it begins again.” This counts for decorating a Christmas tree as well. Make a vow now to do it in a different way this year and clean up everything in an ordered manner so that you don’t need to squander time sorting through broken Christmas ornaments and piles of old tinsel.
So, this year we will still have to start with unsnarling the lights. Then make sure that all the bulbs are working before you try to wrap them around the tree. There is a possibility that if you try to change the bulbs while they are on the tree that a spark could set fire to the tree and turn it into an untimely bonfire.
Start decorating the tree.
When draping the lights over the tree, make sure that the light bulbs are not rested against any branches. Hot bulbs could heat up the needles and catch fire, especially if you did not check the tree when you bought it and you came home with a dry tree. The absolutely safest trees are pre-lit artificial Christmas trees as some of them have automatic shut-down features if they get too hot.
Decorating Christmas trees is all about proportion. The largest sized Christmas ornaments should go at the bottom of the tree and the smallest one at the top. The result is just more pleasant to the eye.
Make your tree personal by adding heirlooms, Christmas cards and personalized Christmas ornaments, but remember less is always more. A good way to avoid of creating a jumble of your most favorite ornaments and other decorations is to choose a theme for your tree. A color theme is the simplest way to keep your Christmas tree in style, but a tree could also be decorated after traditions. E.g. a Country style theme with wooden ornaments or a German tree mostly decorated with food.
The last part of your Christmas tree is the tinsel. It is amazing how many people just throw handfuls of tinsel at the tree which will then look like clumps of spaghetti or major hairballs. Tinsel is supposed to give the tree a frozen look. Imagine how real icicles look when they would be hanging from your tree and hang little strings only at the edges of the branches.
Tags: christmas, Decoration, tree