Christmas Decorating 101

Created as a 'Fun' page, Hometradition's Christmas Decorating 101 is a chance for me to show off my home during the holidays

I am far from professional, but I have decorated enough trees to know some rules-of-thumb and tricks-to-the-trade (so you don't have to make the same mistakes I've made). I hope you pick up some helpful tips, and if nothing else, enjoy the pictures! This page is far from complete. As I gather more pictures, I'll add them along with information on each tree or design.

I'm pretty big on themes - whether it's a color theme or ornament theme. This particular tree has both - cream and sage green for a color theme, and cotton batting for the ornament theme. Almost everything on this tree is from "Seasons of Cannon Falls".

Want to know how to tell if your tree is 'perfect' or not? Take a picture of it. I'm pretty satisfied with this tree except that the star is crooked and stayed crooked the entire holiday season. These pictures were taken after Christmas, before I took the trees down - and then, through the pictures, I saw things that I should have fixed!

This, by far, is my favorite tree. It is a 9' flocked pre-lit tree (by Vickerman).
It a gorgeous tree in itself, I use it to display my collection
of antique and vintage ornaments.

These ornaments by themselves, were very inexpensive, most were purchased at garage sales.  But I have a LOT of them and I stuffed this tree till there was no more room. It is filled with vintage glass balls and bells, old glass garland, cardboard houses (made in Japan) and pixies. Click on image to see large images as well as close-ups of ornaments.

Even though this tree was pre-lit with colored lights, I added plenty of strands of white lights to it.

This is a 7.5' tree with a white and burgundy color theme.
The tree includes poinsettias, roses, gold and burgundy glass balls,
glass ornaments and clear glass garland.

This tree goes well in a more contemporary or traditional setting. Its so elegant!