![]() ![]() Lighting is a pain, but properly done, it can also provide your Christmas fir with glitz and glamor. While there are various ‘pre-lit’ options available today, personally I am not a fan of any of them the lights too dispersed to offer the attention-grabbing sparkle and glow all good tree-lighting should, and with the added hindrance of ‘what to do?‘ when a chord becomes frayed or worse, shorts out, leaving half your tree in the dark. It will see your mistakes as well as your virtues. The human eye is drawn to light at a glance. And do not be naïve to think your lack of finesse here will ‘ come together’ once you have tucked, hanged and otherwise adorned the tree with all your other decorations combined. There is no economy in skimping on your lighting. We’ve all seen them those Charlie Brown-esque trees, unloved and sporting mismatched strands of lights, unceremoniously shoved, tied and/or knotted into crooked branches with all the finesse of a well-used Tim Burton chew toy some twinkling/others not…or worse burnt out or random twinkling at different times to create a frenetic light show about as appealing as a break-dancing chicken with Tourette’s. The most labor-intensive part of any tree trim is lighting. Ultimately, you want to stick with the basics in tree color changing up the decorations rather than the tree from year to year. While trees of these varying shades may seem trendy and fun, your choices of viable ornaments to go on them will be severely limited in most cases, or produce an effect that may look great this year, but severely date by this time next year. In more recent times tree colors have exploded with some truly ‘interesting’ forays into yellow, pink, black, silver and orange. White trees were introduced back in the late seventies as an alternative to green, and apart from the necessity to use lights strung from a white (as opposed to green) cord, as white is a neutral, pretty much the whole palette of colors is available to you. Now, if you are new to tree-trimming and starting from scratch I still tend to gravitate to two basic choices in tree color: either green (of varying shades, flocked or not) or white (either pure or with a feathered silver). Also, some trees today are advertised as ‘shed-less’ meaning the amount of bristles dirtying up your carpets and floor is considerably less from those artificial ‘pine needle-based’ trees of only a few previous years that left a puddle of leftover greenery scattered everywhere and destined to clog up your vacuum cleaner. It may sound like a waste of time, but actually steaming will freshen up the look of branches that have been squished into a box under the stairs for the last nine months. ![]() ![]() You can use either a clothes steamer or just a kettle to liven up matted spruce needles. Also, you will want to fan-out the branches once you have separated them from the hub. So, plunking an artificial tree into its base is likely the easiest part of your task.Ī few tips: make certain the base is sturdy and secure the post tightened evenly between its fasteners. Most artificial tree construction today is ‘umbrella-based’ meaning a bottom, middle and top that simply snap together with ease, the branches pre-attached and fanning out from a central hub. The very good news here is that depending on the lavishness of the accouterments, tree-trimming can be expedited almost down to a science. Because time is so limited, pausing even a moment from the daily grind to decorate a tree can just seem a superficial exercise in the art of time-suckage. But realistically, who has time anymore? Alas, for most, the season creeps up almost unexpectedly and with the prospect of entertaining a houseful of guests, the concept of having a well-turned out home decked to the nines almost always results in tree-trimming becoming as a very solitary pre-celebratory chore, and not altogether an enjoyable one either. It still ought to be about the joy of reuniting with beloved friends and family everyone invested in the communal artistry of bringing sparkle to the bleak winters’ nigh. Now, far be it from me to suggest tree-trimming as a commando-styled exercise. By the time I was twenty I was decorating others’ homes as well as my own, and, by the age of thirty I could confidently refer to myself as a master of the art and craft achieving virtually any theme under budget and on time. As a young adult I became something of an expert at Christmas staging. As a child I lived for this moment all year long. Tree-trimming: it used to be a favorite past time the family gathered to inaugurate the holiday spirit, rechristening the living or family room with festive décor and some communally shared cheer and eggnog. No ‘Ho-Ho’ in Your Tannenbaum? The Do’s and Don’ts to Decorating the Perfect Christmas Tree ![]()
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