What goes on your Christmas tree?

[Alambil]

I only have lights and round, bright baubels on mine.

People think it sounds odd; bare somehow but it looks great!

So, do you go for a mish-mash of shapes, colours etc or are you a "structured" decorater? (decorator?!)

erm, I have a string of coloured lights, a bead chain (forty foot long mind) and some feathery baubles from Woolies.

Oh, and we make biscuits 'for the tree', shortbread, pierce hole for hanging thread before cooking.

Yours sounds super - stylish Lewis, I love the minimal look but somehow my inner 70s come out each Yuletide

Pretty much everything we've ever had goes on ours - baubles, tinsel, bead chains, a variety of lights, various random ornaments from different years - very overloaded and tacky but we like it

Lights and a very select number of items to go with it, all closely themed and picked out each year according to my mood! It looks great although sometimes I think I should do more tinsel and stuff, but I love the way my tree looks! I think the tree itself is as much of it so I hate covering it in "stuff"!

Having said all of that, I also love trees at friends houses which are totally overdone with tinsel and all sorts of bits and pieces - they look so homely, not so staged as my trees do IYSWIM!

lights and ornaments of every sort.

from B&Q plain round baubles to painted dough ornaments DD1 and i made to things others have made or sent us.

this year, we left DD1 to put baubles on where she pleased.

she did a fab job!

is tinsel tacky then??

nooo....tinsel is great alongside lots of lights and baubles and an assortment of dd's handmade doodahs, little soft toys and 2 christening bracelets (hers and mine)

I kind of think of tinsel in the same way as that long string stuff - so yes tacky IMO , but as I have said I think it looks really really good on other peoples trees - perhaps I am too stuck up for my own good

I have tinsel, beads, baubels, decorations, 40 blue lights and 100 red blinking lights. Tacky in the extreme but I love it, it may one day collapse under it's own weight and form a black hole but I don't care

I have two trees
1/ in living room, decorated with white fairy lights, red and gold decorations only, mainly ribbons and baubles
2/ in playroom, coloured fairy lights, tinsel and whatever mad decorations the ds's want!

We have this fabulous retro aluminum tree. I use a black tree skirt and silver balls with all sorts of little crystal/acrylic ornaments. Dh calls it our Oakland Raiders tree

we have a 'theme' each year to match our decor at the time ive got to admit it does look fab when it matches!!
this year iv gone with an assortment of 'fancy' baubles that cost a few bob and some cheapo ones that were the right colour with lights and some tinsel and netted ribbon all in bronze, copper and chocolate brown and it looks totally gorgeous!! (and it matches the couch)
my mum however is of the throw it all on variety so much so that you cant see the tree for the tinsel!! she doesnt mind that it is a bit of a pain in the eyes at best but its her tree so i wont knock it off the stand...i promise...
xx ei xx

Well I have lots of decorations that I have been collecting for years now- some bought in Thailand when we lived there, others bought in various other places and they all have memories. However when buying things I pretty much stuck to traditional red, green and gold. And I only have white lights.

Lately though I thought the tree looks a bit flat/boring. So have bought some silver things this year to try to brighten it up and will add lots more lights. Don't like tinsel but I did have some stuff I bought in the States that was long silvery strands that I used to just throw at the tree when all the other stuff was on and it did make the tree look lovely and shimmery.

oh no buda - sensiblehead will have the tree police on you for using that long stringy tinsel

now ... angel's hair ... what's that about? it looks like cobwebs!

I tried to put a star on top but it kept leaning. We have two sets of lights, some red and gold baubles, tinsel and a couple of gold and red garlands. It looked quite nice before the ds's started messing with it.

We have a big 6/7ft artificial tree. It gets covered in 500 white lights - we originally had 20 when we had the smaller tree, but I decided it wouldn't be enough, so bought a bigger pack, only didn't realise at the time how many it was. They look great on the tree though. Then the decortaions go on. Some are ones the children ahve made, then I have bought them a decoration every year, so they go on, then there are ones sent from America and Cananda by friends, and then some plain red or gold bauble type things.

My tree has only gold and red decorations on, a variety of icicle styles, baubles and mini wrapped present ytpe thingies, we also have three extra thick bits of tinsle, draped every third, and then the star at the top. The kids have little mini xmas trees in their rooms with some tinsle and the bow type decorations on their windowsills, I didn't let them near the tree this year
They do help though, they get to hand mummy the baubles

I know nappyaddict - don't tell her! It did really lift the tree though! Haven't been able to get the same effect with the one I bought in the UK. The one I bought in the States was really light and it sort of moved in the air and looked beautiful. And I hate tinsel so was surprised at how effective this stuff was.

Up to, and including last year - white lights, silver tinsel and beads, a variety of blue, white and silver baubles (including mini disco-balls, they're my favourite). Quite tasteful. Boooring. It's not up yet this year, but I am planning to finally embrace the presnce of the small child, and the tree will also include: clear plastic baubles with stickers and glitter glue all over them (as created yesterday) and mad, Picasso-esque foam animals. Think I will have to get DD to create something else bonkers before next weekend, that doesn't sound quite enough.

buda - was it lamenta?

We have a right old mish mash.
A selection of nice new matching baubles and then a few pairs of matching ones.
Also some odd bits and bats that have been bought for the children, topped off with coloured lights that dh bought at the weekend and some old coloured ones because we ended up with the fattest 6ft tree I have ever seen.

One thing I've always wanted to know and its a genuine question...if you hang biscuits on a tree don't they go a bit off after a few days? (you know, all soft).

Might have been nappyaddict - I bought it in 1990!!!! Used to carefully take it off the tree and put it in a bag every year but it finally got a bit sad looking about 2 years ago and I junked it!

ROFL nappyaddict! I googled lamenta and this appeared!!!!

(May get some for DH!!!)