Most trees are decorated in one evening and then quietly deteriorate for six weeks. A little planning at the start buys you a tree that still looks deliberate on the day you take it down.
Hang the Heavy Things First
Ceramic, glass and anything with a weighted base goes on before the lights and before the light ornaments. Heavy pieces need branches close to the trunk, and once the tree is dressed you cannot see where those branches are. Working outward from the trunk also stops the classic failure where every solid ornament ends up on the tips and the tree slowly droops into a cone of drooping ends.
Three Depths, Not One Surface
- Deep: matte baubles pushed right in near the trunk, doing nothing but filling the dark.
- Middle: the pieces with detail worth reading – carved wood, appliqued felt, anything hand-painted.
- Tips: light, reflective, and only the light and reflective. Glass drops, mirrored blades, gilt threads.
A tree decorated on one plane reads as a wall. Three depths is what makes it read as a tree, and it costs nothing but the order you hang things in.
Leave Two Branches Empty
Something will break, and something will arrive late. Two empty branches at eye height on the side that faces the room is the difference between absorbing that gracefully and re-hanging half the tree in the third week of December.
