'O Christmas Tree! - Living Solutions blog

Jill’s Tree

One of my favorite things about Christmas is definitely the tree. There is just something extremely comforting about a beautifully decorated pine in the living room. Maybe it’s the ambiance from the soft white lights. Or maybe it’s that every ornament is a reminder of a camping trip, a family vacation, our wedding & honeymoon, or a memory from our childhood.

What ever it is, I just love it!!

For years I have decorated our tree exactly the same, with the exception of that years new ornament addition. Gina and I have an annual tradition of taking some time for ourselves in the middle of the holiday season and escaping to Canterbury Gardens in Escondido or City Lights Collectables in San Diego. For an afternoon we surround ourselves with the magic of Christmas (while spending a mini fortune). We figure the amount of enjoyment we get from these treasures makes the them worth every penny.

A ceramic wedding dress was a memento of our wedding last year. The little ring was a topper on a gift from my bridal shower.

This year I decided to mix it up a bit. My idea was to add a little flare by adding some feathers. Late one evening, in a moment of impatiences, I found an old feather boa, and cut it into pieces to give it a new life as Christmas decor. I would like to add more feathers, but that will have to wait for next year.

I also added branches w/these red “berries”. I love the extra color and texture it adds.

This is another style of branch that I put in between tree branches. All of them are made of wire. This allows me to have more control by bending them into shape.

Gina’s Tree

This year, I have brought out more of our ornaments and added….guess what….a fabric garland! I continued the same fabrics I used on the mantle garland but I just used the red fabrics and one green one to make it slightly different from the other garlands. It is also quite a bit smaller so it had a better proportion on the tree.

I have collected Christopher Radko ornaments since college. I love the shiny, some what glitzy aspect to them. Similar style ornaments have been added to the collection, too. My mom has contributed to my collection and every year I add a few more as well! I find ones that mean something and remind us of the past year and since I had my first baby, I get an ornament of what they were for Halloween.

The vintage feel of the fabric garland mixes great with the more glitzy, glam ornament collection.

I’ve decided I need to add some more lights next year, but after all these years, I still haven’t figured out the very best way to add lights to the tree! Any hints would be greatly appreciated!

My pictures aren’t the best. We’ve had quite a few technical difficulties around here lately and the lens of my “good” camera is in the shop getting fixed. But here are some pictures of our Christmas tree this year. I should mention that the lowest quarter of our tree doesn’t have much on it because our 13 month old is working on “just looking with his eyes!!!”

I added a bunch of green and red ball ornaments to add some color and fill in where I needed something extra. It’s a great way to add some uniformity to a tree with an eclectic mix of ornaments.