How to Decorate a Christmas Tree

First of all, you should pick a theme for your tree. Colours, textures and lighting can all match, or you can go with a mix of everything for a colourful look.

You’ll need between 100-300 lights per foot, so if your tree is 6 feet tall, you’ll need between 600-1,800 lights to get good coverage. LED lights are cooler, while incandescent lights give off a warmer glow. You can even use colour-changing lights for fun effects.

You’ll need 20-30 ornaments per foot, so if your Christmas tree is 6 feet tall, you’ll need about 120-180 ornaments. You’ll also need a tree topper, some garland, a tree skirt and a step ladder to stand on while putting all of your lights and decorations up.   

When placing your tree, take both safety and aesthetics into account. You may have to move your furniture around to get the best placement, so prepare for that. Put your tree as close to a wall electrical outlet – preferably one that doesn’t share an appliance - so that you don’t have cords running through your room, which could be a tripping hazard. Keep your tree away from furnaces or fireplaces to avoid a potential fire.

To make things easier, use a smart plug in the outlet so that you can turn your tree on and off from your smartphone, without having to climb behind it and manually unplug it from the wall. You can also always be sure that it’s off by seeing the status from anywhere while you’re out and about.    

When it comes to how to put lights on a Christmas Tree, one of the first things to do is to make sure you test your strings of lights to ensure they work before stringing them. There are lots of ways you can string Christmas lights. You can drape the lights from the top of the tree downward into a spiral. You can divide the tree into three vertical triangles and fill in each each triangle with lights, running the light strings from side to side down the length of the area. Or, begin at the trunk of the tree and wrap each branch with a light strand up to two inches from the tip for a great look. Once you’ve got them strung and lit up, look for any dark spots on the tree and adjust accordingly until you’ve got complete coverage.    

Be sure to have a variety of ornament hangers on hand to accommodate the varying sizes of ornaments. Hang your large ornaments first, and spread them out so they’re not clumped together. Then hang your medium ornaments and fill the spaces between the big ones, hanging them further into the tree than the larger ones. Then fill any remaining gaps with your smallest ornaments. This should give you perfect coverage.    

To finish your tree, add your tree topper on the top of the tree by placing it over the vertical branch on top. Tree toppers can be something plain like an angel or star, or can light up with LED lights for a more colourful look. Now you can relax and enjoy your tree!