You don’t need to be a designer to create a beautiful Christmas tree

The Christmas tree at our house is always the first to go up, the last to come down, and the shining glory of our home the entire Christmas season. On cold dark winter mornings, the first thing my kids would do was run to the tree and turn on the Christmas lights. (They would even fight over it until we made a rule to take turns!) It’s the last thing I turn off at night before heading to bed.

To me all Christmas trees are beautiful, but I have learned so many things over the years that have added to the splendor of my tree. No matter what style of tree you have, you’ll find some tips here to make it even more amazing.

• Wrap Christmas light strings up and down each branch. This is the secret to an amazing tree! I use a power bar so that I can have lots of lights without stringing them all in sequence. Start your lights at a branch at the bottom, close to the trunk and near your power bar or extension cord. Once you’ve wrapped the lights up to the tip of the branch and back down the branch to the trunk, skip over to the next branch and do the same, rotating around the tree as you move upward. Check the instructions on your lights, but generally, put no more than three strings of incandescent lights in sequence. Exactly how many you can string together will depend on how long each string is and the total voltage it draws. Start your next series of strings at the next outlet on your extension cord or power bar. (If you use LEDs, you can string way more together in sequence without concern.) Wrapping your tree in lights this way will give it depth and is what will make your tree look amazing, no matter what kind of ornaments you have or how many.

• Scent sticks. If you have an artificial tree, you can still enjoy the scent of a fresh tree by placing scent sticks within your tree. They come in packages of six or more with hooks you can hang deep inside your tree. I like to tuck them in before I start decorating with garland or Christmas ornaments so I’m not knocking ornaments down as I reach deep into the tree. The scent sticks are green so they blend in with green trees and typically come in pine or fir scent, but sometimes you can find spruce, cedar or simply “tree” scent.

• Place old, worn ornaments deep. If some ornaments are showing their wear, place them deep inside the tree to give it depth and shine without drawing too much attention to them. Note: If any of your ornaments are really old, they may be made of mercury glass or have lead paint on them, so be sure to wash your hands well after handling them. This is especially important if you are nibbling on goodies while decorating your tree.

• Place long ornaments on branches that stick out further than the rest. This allows the ornaments to hang freely and twirl without hitting the branches below. If you like to decorate with tin icicles (I love them!), consider reserving some of these long branches for the icicles, which typically go on last.

• Place unbreakable ornaments at the bottom. You learn this fast if you have kids or pets with wagging tails, but it is even helpful if you don’t. Think of having family over and crowding around or brushing past the Christmas tree. Having unbreakables at the bottom is also helpful when you pull out a present from under the tree. If an ornament gets knocked off in the process, it’s no big deal.

• Medium size ornaments. Medium sized ornaments can go almost anywhere on the tree, ideally with the greatest concentration in the mid-section of your tree. Consider grouping by theme; for example, I have several musical themed ornaments that I group near each other. Others – like my round shiny globes in silver, gold, metallic red, blue and purple – I spread out evenly across the tree.

• Set the mood. Decorating the tree is one of my favourite activities of the holiday season. Before I start, I like to put on my favourite playlist of Christmas tunes, make some mulled wine, hot apple cider or hot chocolate to enjoy, along with a few snacks. Sometimes my husband and kids help. Sometimes it’s a peaceful, solitary endeavor. But either way, it’s always a labour of love and beauty.

• Set up the tree. If it’s a fresh tree, the side with the most branches and least “gaps” should face into your room. If your tree is artificial, put it up in tiers, fluffing the branches that may have been squished together when it was boxed the year before. If it’s pre-lit, put the whole tree together at once. If it doesn’t have lights, put only one tier up at a time, and don’t put the next tier on until you have strung lights on the bottom tier – this will make wrapping the branches in lights so much easier!

• Light check, please. Plug your light strings in and replace any worn out bulbs or burnt fuses. It’s maddening that the strings don’t last very long, and seldom do the light bulbs of one string fit with another. If you can, buy at least two strings more than you feel you need, and pull out all the bulbs in at least one string to use them as replacements. If a string fails, you’ll also have a backup string. I highly recommend getting a light string “gun” that helps repair light strings. They are not very expensive, and you only need to fix a couple strings of Christmas lights before it has paid for itself.

• Garland and ribbons. Next up is the garland and ribbons, if you use them. You want them on before you place ornaments so that you’re not knocking off ornaments as you adjust the garland. On my “vintage” tree I don’t use garland as it takes up precious real estate on my Christmas tree and can hide my ornaments. But on my “homemade” ornament tree, I use three long ribbons that each start at the top of the tree and, spiral down the tree evenly spaced, twisting like streamers as I go. When using garland, you can drape it from limb to limb, in a spiral, evenly around your tree from top to bottom. Some people like to tuck the garland into the tree to give it a more “filled out” look.

• Unbox the ornaments! I like to unbox all my ornaments before placing them on the tree as a reminder of what exactly I have. I generally organize them loosely by size, shape, material and sometimes colour. We like to collect ornaments as souvenirs of the places we travel, so we also reminisce as we place each of these special ornaments on the tree.

• Large ornaments first. There are fewer places that big ornaments will fit and look good, so place them first. Generally, larger ornaments look better lower on the tree. Be careful to place them on sturdy branches. Sometimes branches are sturdier the deeper inside the tree you go. If you place them too close to the tip of a branch, they can make it sag. With fresh trees, your branches may droop so much that the ornament falls off and breaks.

• Place coloured ornaments next to matching coloured lights. Obviously, this applies only to trees with multicoloured lights. But if you want your ornaments to look really spectacular, place your blue ornament by a blue light, a red ornament by a red light, and so on. It takes a little more time to decorate the tree this way, but it is well worth it for the extra glow that will radiate from your tree.

• Small ornaments last. Fill in the tree with smaller Christmas ornaments and balls, with the smallest going the highest on the tree. When in doubt, add more! Use a sturdy step ladder if you need to, and go all the way to the top. The great thing about tiny blown glass ornaments is that you can even add them to a branch that already has an ornament as they add very little weight.

• Tinsel vs icicles? Some people love tinsel, some people hate it. I’m in the latter group, but my husband loves tinsel because it reminds him of his childhood tree. So, every other year we add tinsel for him. On my year, we use the old-fashioned twisted aluminum icicles. I have at least four dozen, some of which were handed down to me from my mom, and some that I bought brand new at Restoration Hardware several years ago. I reserve the very tips of long branches for these retro icicles.

• Tree skirt. While technically, it’s not part of the tree, a nice tree skirt can add a finishing touch to the tree. I like using something simple and not too ornate so it doesn’t compete with the tree. Mine is red velvet with a couple white reindeer and white pom-poms along the hem. It was just too cute to pass up and I knew the kids would love it.

• Star of the show. Whether it’s a star, an angel or some other tree-topper, it always goes on last, signifying the completion of decorating the Christmas tree.

Now it’s time to turn the lights off in the house and bask in the glow of the tree and the work of art and beauty that it is. Enjoy!