Tired of Sappy Ornaments, Old Ideas? Branch Out to a Merry Masterpiece
Be honest. If your Christmas tree had a theme, would it be Ghosts of Christmases Past?
Too many tree decorators take the rolling-snowball approach. Their trees roll willy-nilly through the years, gathering every ornament anyone has ever given them or made (including preschoolers). Over the years, their poor, uncensored pine looks more like a holiday hodgepodge than a thoughtful expression.
“People’s trees are an enormous reflection of them,” said Sharon Hays, author of “Christmas Tree Book” (General Publishing Group), a new pictorial collection of celebrity and landmark trees.
If that’s a scary thought, her book is one place you can turn for inspiration. In it you’ll see Vincent Price’s tree dripping with skeletons, cobwebs and worms, along with Jane Seymour’s, which resembles a ball gown. (The tree topper is the bust of a female mannequin; the tree below forms the elaborate skirt.)
To create your merry masterpiece, you can follow these tips from Hays and other tree design experts:
* Edit your ornaments. Be ruthless and purge ornaments past their prime. Toss them or save them for a secondary tree, say, in the basement, suggests Renee Henry, tree designer and chairperson for the Festival of the Trees, a holiday fund-raiser for Torrance Memorial Medical Center.
If you can’t part with the children’s handmade ornaments, create a tree using just those with some plain bulbs, lights and bows.
* Location, location, location. To decide which ornaments to use and which to lose or save for another tree (or year), consider the room the tree will go in. If it’s the formal living room, go with blown-glass pieces and heirlooms. If it’s going in the family room or den, hang the country kitsch, wooden and handmade ornaments.
* Exercise color control. As you gather and disqualify tree materials, have a color scheme in mind. Most tree designers stick to one, two or three colors.
Hays likes to use three colors: one bold, one metallic and one deep. For example, she might blend bright red, metallic gold and deep green, or purple, silver and deep yellow.
Actress Sharon Stone used even more restraint when covering her tree with red hearts.
* Find your passion. If you have a passion, you’ve got a theme, Hays says. If you’re into photography, for example, cover your tree with lots of small photos in matching frames.
Boxer Oscar de la Hoya creates a knockout tree with lots of small, bright red boxing gloves. “Baywatch’s” David Hasselhoff adorns his tree with sunglasses, flip-flops, small surfboards and a tan Ken doll in trunks that looks an awful lot like him.
Whether it’s teddy bears, angels, chocolate or sailboats that express you best, a theme not only focuses your decorating but also makes a more memorable tree.
* Go for unity. Whatever the theme, place your ornaments over a unified backdrop, says Paul Ecke, co-owner of Black Iris, a Laguna Beach florist in high demand for tree decorating.
Ecke likes to start with white lights. He then weaves swaths of taffeta or organza through the tree. (The average tree requires about 20 yards of 2-foot-wide fabric.)
He wraps, tufts and crunches the fabric while fashioning strategically placed bows. Next, he suggests buying a couple of dozen matching glass ornaments and hanging these all over in clusters of twos or threes.
That’s your tabula rasa.
On this, place the ornaments you love. “That way your tree looks pulled together, yet it’s still meaningful,” he says.
(If that all sounds too complicated, you can hire Black Iris to decorate your tree for around $100 per foot. But not this year. They’re booked.)
* Lay on the lights. You’ll need more than you think, Henry says. Clear show up best, but color to go with your theme can look great, too.
* Hang by the numbers. When actually placing ornaments, do a little math first. (This may mean forgoing the hot toddies until after the decorating.) Divide the tree in thirds from top to bottom and also around the circumference, says Henry, then balance the number of ornaments n each section while varying the type and size within the section.
* Bridge the gaps. Professional designers know how to fill the gaps where ornaments won’t hang by stuffing them with bows, pine cones and dried flowers. Covering a tree with little red bows can be an inexpensive way to unify and rejuvenate a tree, while clusters of baby’s breath or dried hydrangea can add a wonderful illusion.
Pine cones (buy them by the bag) wired on top of branches also make festive filler for an informal tree. And wiring real pine branches on an artificial tree can provide the missed scent of pine.
One tree in Hays’ book has inflated red, green and yellow balloons as filler, all set off by lights.
* Why stop at one? In a season not known for restraint, Hays suggests having two or more trees in a home, the main tree and a couple of tabletop trees.
“The golf tree may not be the tree for the whole family, but it may be a small tree on the bar,” she says.
Or put another small tree in the playroom decorated with just Beanie Babies.
* Know when to stop. If you find yourself looking wistfully at your box of rejected ornaments and reaching for just one more, resist. While it’s true that they may never see a tree branch again, they’ll surely find a support group somewhere.
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
Where to Get More Christmas Tree Ideas
For more Christmas tree looky-looing:
* Holidays at the Nixon Library & Birthplace. Displays of holiday trees from around the world and the Nixon family tree. Free admission from 5-9 p.m Wednesday and Dec. 23. 18001 Yorba Linda Blvd., Yorba Linda, (714) 993-5075.
* Sawdust Festival Winter Fantasy. Arts and crafts by dozens of vendors as well a display of trees, continuous live folk music, dance, comedy, carolers, storytelling and other entertainment. 11 a.m.-7 p.m. today and Sunday. $1-$4. 935 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. (949) 494-3030.
