Preparing for Christmas Part 1 - THE CHRISTMAS TREE

Christmas probably has to be my favourite time of the year. Growing up, Christmas was a fun time when we spent special time with family, ate, drank and made merry. Every Chriastmas Eve (still my favourite day of the Christmas/ New Year period) we would have Open House where friends and family were casually invited to stop in and stay awhile for nibbles and drinks, while Christmas tunes played in the background. They always turned out to be the greatest evenings and loads of laughs and fun. A tradition we kept going for a long time until our family started moving far and wide. I still like to organise an Open House when I host Christmas these days.

I host Christmas on alternating years. My sister does the ones between mine, and we have done this since we both were married, as both our in-laws live overseas. It has evolved into quite the competition, and it's HEAPS of fun.

So! The first thing I do in preparing for my Christmas festivities is to decide on a theme, starting with the tree. No plans ever end up with the WOW factor unless you start with a theme. When my husband and I moved into our first home, I bought a 6ft tall Christmas tree. At the time, I still did not have the interior decor to my liking yet, so when I began purchasing my first ornaments, I decided that the theme for my Christmas tree would be gold & silver. I chose this scheme because I figured that whatever interior design I settled on in the future, or changed, it would always look appropriate.

MY rule for picking out decorations is that they have to sparkle in some way. I like when I turn the Christmas tree lights on in the evening and the lights reflect and shine off every ornament. Glitter, spun glass, shiny glass, mirrors, beads. If it has bling on, it's going on my tree.

As you may imagine, I did not buy a full tree of ornaments all at once. That would be ridiculously expensive. What I did buy was some big packs of shiny plastics balls that were $5 for example, for 24 balls, and I bought a few packs of those. Some bead garland, and of course lights, and I think that's all I had hanging on my tree the first year. Every year since then, I've added to it, and now it's so full, I have trouble getting everything on! So much so, that now my children have their own little tree that goes in the other room that they put their own special ornaments on that they've collected and made over the years.

Once I had a conversation with someone who told me that Christmas trees only look good with red and green ornaments. Haha. Ridiculous! I do however, have a very strong aversion to Northern Hemisphere themed decorating ie, snowmen, snow, holly, and the like. I prefer things that remind me of my Christmas's growing up; lots of lights, Christmas bush, Agapanthus flowers etc.

I believe that all Christmas trees look magnificent if there is a theme. That could be a combination of colours; like pink & purple, red & gold, black, white & silver or just one colour, like all blue. It could be just one kind of ornament; like all glass balls, or all stars. A friend of mine collects Disney ornaments, so her tree is all colours, but all Disney characters. Even better is it if it fits in nicely with the room it's in in some way.

This is a picture of my Christmas tree taken last year. And for the first time since being in our house, I moved it's location in the room (just for a change).

Once you have the tree up and decorated, then the next step is choosing gift wrap and ribbon ready for tizzying up your gifts, but will save that for my next blog.

So if your Christmas tree is ready for an update, or you're just starting out with a new tree, now is the time to start planning!