High Impact, Low Stress Christmas Decorations
*Collaborative post
Christmas decoration is like sugar – it’s a personal choice. Whether you have minimalist tastes, or wait the whole year to just let rip on the tinsel and turn the house into a Christmas wonderland in December, the chances are great that your plan will not work the way you’d like them to if you fail to plan. Knowing how much of what kind of decoration you need will help a lot in helping you to establish what your final outcome might look like. This is especially true if you are planning to include Christmas lights, because nothing looks quite as silly as bald patches in a light display!
Once you’ve come up with an idea that feels right, you have carte blanche to go wild! Remember that it’s supposed to be fun, and that there is no right or wrong when it comes to your creativity.
Make that Christmas Spirit Your Own
Red and green are the traditional colors for Christmas decorations, but no-one said you need to stick to that theme! Go for metallics or even bright and bold colors if you prefer, or take the nature route and bring the outside indoors with a bit of greenery.
Greenery also extends to the Christmas tree itself. Pick your tree based on the kind of Christmas tree decorations you are planning to use. There is nothing wrong with a plastic tree, if you take care to buy one that doesn’t look cheaply made or ratty. Fluffy branches and a deep green color always work the best. When setting up the tree, make sure that you space and move the branches around to make the tree appear more voluminous and lusher, which in turn makes for a far better display.
Pick Your Ornaments Carefully
There really is no guideline about Christmas tree decorations, but a good rule of thumb is to stick to one theme once you’ve chosen it. A matte finish can look more sophisticated, but if you don’t care about that and love shiny decorations, go crazy with the shiny stuff! The same goes for color – a cohesive palette looks great, but if you love and prefer the traditional multicolored tree, Christmas lights and all, you should absolutely pursue that. It’s all about the look you are trying to achieve. Picking colors that work with what your space already holds will have a calming effect, while vibrant colors, while they might clash a bit, will lift the overall energy of the room.
Let’s Talk About the Lights!
There are several ways to light up your space over Christmastime – from strings of lights that cascade down the banister, to dainty lights festooning the tree. You can even buy a pre-lit Christmas tree, where the lights are built into the artificial foliage of the tree.
If you are buying your lights separately, you can choose between LED and incandescent lights. LED is often the pick of choice, as they have a long lifespan, don’t heat up to much during operation, and don’t place too heavy a demand on the power supply (and this also directly affects what it costs to run them).
Conversely, incandescent lights are quite heavy on the power consumption front, and as such, the number of strings you can link together to expand your display, is far less than what would have been the case with LED. The heavy power demand also means that they are much more expensive to run than their LED counterparts. LED also produces far more vivid colour, last longer and are safer to operate. Of course, whichever you choose, it is, as with any electrical goods, it is of utmost importance that it be treated safely, and that small children are not allowed to treat the Christmas lights as a toy.
Once your lights are up, you can start the process of decorating the rest of the tree. Use thin wire to ensure that your garlands stay in place, and add the ornaments that make sense to you within your colour scheme and overall design. If you have any special or hand made ornaments from kids or friends, add them – after all, Christmas is not about visual perfection, but about heart, and connecting with those we love.
