Tell Homebase how you decorate your Christmas tree for a chance to win a £300 voucher!NOW CLOSED

[RebeccaEMumsnet]

It’s officially December, which means that most can’t deny that it’s time to start thinking about putting up your Christmas decorations!
To celebrate their Christmas range, Homebase want to know how you decorate your Christmas tree.

So, do you have a family ritual for decorating the tree? Do you put on some festive music and get all the DC to help, or are you quite particular about what goes where? Does each year mean a new theme for your decorations, or do you like to mix old and new? Do you love homemade decorations, or do you prefer a more polished look? And finally, the ultimate question, is it a star or an angel on top?

However you decorate your tree, post a comment below to be entered into a prize draw where one Mumsnetter will win a £300 Homebase voucher.

Thanks and good luck,

MNHQ

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Our tree decor has been completely dictated by DS (3yo) who is obsessed with trains, so the only decorations allowed on the tree are blue...like Thomas.

Since I was a little girl traditionally we decorate the tree as a family I always loved this and thought it was magical, so i now do the same with my 2 little ones.
The decorations are sentimental items the kids have made some and baubles we have gathered on our travels and 1st Xmas etc.

Our tree us a right old mixture but we love it. The only thing which is BANNED is tinsel. We have a mix of bought and made decorations. A lot of the decorations have memories/ stories attached - these tiny baubles were my Gran's, that was a gift from a friend, this was brought from Nazareth by my parents, that was bought from my crochet group etc. etc.

We have a few coloured lights but mostly an off white, twinkly. There's also some small tartan bows which I tie myself.

To make Christmas more fun, we have two trees, one decorated the traditional way and a tiny tree decorated with edible decorations like cookies, sweets, canes, chocolate stars and santas along with the traditional tinsels and lights. Goes down a treat with the kids and guests.

Ours is made up of lots of very old decorations handed down from grandparents, plus a much loved and added-to collection of childrens decorations, and beautiful things in lots of different colours. White lights and NO TINSEL! It is loaded with things that we love getting out and seeing every year. Oh and gingerbread shapes decorated by the girls, plus some chocolate decorations too. It's beautiful and gives us huge pleasure.

First Christmas with my son this year. Very much looking forward to creating some family traditions. This year we have a tiny tree on a high table so he can't pull it down/eat it/electrocute himself!

home made or... looks home made!!

The tradition used to be that the tree went up no more than 12 days before Christmas. But DD is now 6 and was not willing to wait. There were tears and tantrums but we at least made it to December before it got done.

Decorations are a hotchpotch of stuff accumulated over the years - mainly bought but also homemade stuff from the DC. There is no theme of colour or style. I put the lights on first, then leave the DC to their own devices.

It all depends - we try to do it together on a set day but often other stuff happening during December gets in the way. My husband always gets the tree and decorations out of the garage and sets up the tree and I then seperate the branches and sort out the baubles. We always have red and gold baubles (although I am toying with changing it next year) and clear led lights with different programmes that we can use on them (fast flash, slow flash, twinkle etc). DS age 5 usually helps decorate the tree and this year for the first time DD has been able to properly help too which was lovely - I do have to oversee the positioning of the baubles as they have a tendency to stick hundreds in one place. To avoid this we bought them a small tree of their own which they have upstairs that they can decorate themselves - this avoids the main tree looking like the decorations box has spewed all its contents on one section!

We have a santa please stop here sign and a few other bits around the house but no lights outside, although I would love to have some at some point, we just haven't found any we like yet - one of my favourite things about Christmas is seeing all the houses with their lights up outside.

We have some decorations which are family heirlooms from my husbands childhood which get placed on the tree - high up to keep them safe from little fingers and the cat! I don't have anything like that which saddens me but our son and daughter both have personalised decorations which we will pass down to them in years to come.

Mostly our style is classic, I don't go too overboard, just enough that the house looks festive without being too OTT.

Dd goes to town with the decorations. It looks a complete state but she loves how it looks.

we have an Elf day on 1st December - pancakes, bacon and maple syrup for breakfast and the movie in the afternoon. We decorate the tree with last years baubles but each year we buy a few new ones and make them into something my son is interested in that year. So far we have Storm troopers (white bauble +sharpie) Baymax (same) , Lego (yellow+sharpie) Its nice to sit down that night with the tree all decorated and watch a lovely xmassy film.

We buy the biggest tree we can fit into our sitting room, spray all the branches with glue/spray mount and then cover them with bags and bags of fine grade silver glitter. Then we add silver, glass and glittery ornaments (mostly bought on our travels) and some soft white lights. We have a wreath on the front door and that's it!

I have two step children as well as a toddler, so we wait for the first weekend in December that they are with us and all go and choose a tree from our local sawmill together. We decorate it listening to Christmas songs and have minced pies a mulled wine/punch and hot chocolate. We buy one new decoration a year and have a mix of decorations, but they're mostly red/white/bits of silver. I think it looks lovely! We have a big red star at the top of the tree but this year we also have a chicken on top of the star, at my toddler's insistence! He has taken to hanging whatever he can to the lower branches too, toys etc, so it has character this year.

We have lots of lovely glass decorations, but they're round about the house in case the new dog takes a dislike or fancy to the tree. It's usually the DC who decorate the tree together, but this year DH had a fit of tastefulness and did ours in a disturbingly tidy fashion. DS2 tried to fix it by cramming 3 different angels precariously at the top, but the overwhelming impression is of unnatural neatness.
Fortunately that isn't replicated anywhere else in the house. It's all tinsel and lights wherever we could find a space for it.

We have a rather spindly cheap artificial tree that somehow we've never got around to replacing! Baubles are a mixture of old and new - some from my own childhood which is a trip down memory lane each year.

We all put the tree up and the kids decorate it (and later I redecorate it because I literally can't cope with all the decorations on one side of the tree or just at the bottom)!!

What I love about getting the decorations out each year is the memories that are associated with each decoration. I love having non-matching decoration and love to see my little boys hand made contributions hang up. Each year my partner buys me a special decoration and these take pride of place along side the paper cut outs and tatty pompoms.

We top our tree with a fairy. She is not an angel - she has a wand :-)

My mother tops her tree with an angel that I made 32 years ago. It looks old and yellowed but she loves it.

We have a lovely artificial tree that we bring out every year, pre lit which makes decorating really easy. We always put the Christmas songs on and get a drink and make a lovely evening of it! No tinsel here though bead garlands instead!

We all have to be there but the kids take the lead. Then the adults redo it once they're in bed...

Decorating the Christmas tree is a family affair - the first Sunday afternoon in December
My toddler has her own tree in the dining room and decorates it as she pleases - Her tree is glittery white and this year, she has decorated in pink, silver, purple, turquoise glitter ribbon and it looks awesome
The family tree is more traditional - in the lounge, it's a pine tree and this year is red and silver

I brought a new Christmas tree this year funnily enough from Homebase ( I forgot I have our Christmas tree away last year on freecycle lol). We love it as it is a snowy look one, the children were so excited our tree has snow on it.
Our tree tends to have a mixture of decorations last year our tree had a variety of coloured baubels, tinsels and our children's home made decorations.
This year as we brought our new tree we wanted new decorations and as our tree is a snowy design we decided on gold and red ornaments, we have a red star on top which was chosen by our eldest daughter, we also have a spare gold one if we want to change it. Our tree has the decorations our children made last year on it and we also made some new ones at home which we have put on also.

I like trees that have a personal touch and have home made items as well as brought. I think trees which are set up very specifically with everything in a certain place are a bit overboard and not what Christmas is about but then that's just my opinion.

The decorations the DCs have made over the years don't go on our main tree. They are instead displayed on a bunting style banner in the room. It means the tree looks classic and clean. It also means their artwork isn't hidden. 😀

Our Christmas tree is a mixture of some very precious handmade toys our little boy and pieces we have picked up on our travels. Our tree is put up during the first week of December and is my favourite thing to do with a good old glass of something very alcoholic!!!

Our Christmas tree rules:
Never, ever use tinsel.
Always a star, they followed a star to Bethlehem!

Normally pick a Sunday afternoon and stick on the festive tunes and have a lovely glass of wine whilst doing it this year however we have a one year old so it was put up when she was in bed, no decorations on the bottom, no wine this year but still had the festive tunes on!

We have a fake tree which we use every year, decorations we have made over a number of years ( air dry clay hearts, Father Christmas, angel, ) and Victorian style wooden decorations and I put strings on red Lindor chocolates and hang them from the tree like baubles, always very popular !

We usually put our tree up the first weekend of December. Husband goes into the loft and brings all the boxes down. We then put Christmas carols on and start with the tree. All of our decorations have memories for us and I love seeing them all again each year. This year was the first as a family with our son born at the end of November. Even though he couldn't help, it just felt so much more magical and special doing it as a family this year