This year we decided to stick with a more neutral and mature color palette when it came to Christmas decorating.  So when it came to our ornamentation of the tree, we nixed our red ornaments in favor of our white and silver balls with a bit of gold ribbon.  This color palette and our entire theme would be rustic-meets-disco charm.  It’s like Jeff Foxworthy on Dancing with the Stars.  Now THAT would be a Christmas to remember! 

And since we are gonna have many years to come of our future children’s homemade decorations and young fun colors, we figured that this might be last season to have a totally grown-up tree…free of red and green ornaments. 

So Jeremy pulled out the Christmas boxes from the attic and we set up our fake tree in a jiffy.

No seriously. 

It only took about two minutes from complete darkness to 3200+ lights. 

Did you just die of jealousy?

Because I think my mother just did.  You could have a joint funeral.  I’ll bring the bacon.

Here’s how we did it:  We have an umbrella style christmas tree.  The base is pretty simple.  A pole with feet and some ‘hula hoops’ that hold the branches out in the Christmas-tree fashion.  The top of the pole has individual slots that fit the hooks on the branches.  The lights are already strung up on each of the individual hanging branches and all we have to do is slip the branch into the correct slot and plug the cord into the power strip.  And lucky for us, we strung up all 3200+ lights just last year.  We also took the extra step by attaching the power strip directly to the base pole of the tree allowing us easy access to the on/off switch.

After setting up the tree, it looked a little something like this:

I made the executive decision that this year would be the year of the horizontal ribbon.  Last year we did vertical ribbon.  But this year?  This year it was time to make our tall tree look a little more porky by layering on some stripes of curls.  I went to work using the method I showed ya’ll in this video to make each curl and then did some stripes with gold and some with both silver & gold sparkly wire ribbon.

Then I pulled out every silver ornament we owned.

My holiday lovin’ boyfriend popped in a Christmas cd and we got to hanging.

And Jeremy even posed for his infamous-ornament-as-eyeballs shot.

That is the man of my unborn child.

oh so sexy 🙂

Then after all the ornaments were up, we flipped off all the room lights so that we could see the glory of the newly decorated tree with one flick of the finger.  It really adds something to the anticipation.

Countdown with me –

3

2

2.5

2.25

1

1.95 (just kidding!)

TADA!

Golly gee….it’s just so darn swell.

And here is a video of the whole yule-time experience:

Christmas Tree Decorating 2009 from Katie Bower on Vimeo.

***UPDATE: Before anyone says that we copied YHL’s video – I would like to say that I invented Christmas tree decorating and the high-five 🙂  Seriously though…Sherry & I had a very hearty laugh about the similarities (I sent her this video link after seeing her awesome fruity tree post) and we credit it to both being from the garden state.  See New York?  Good things do come from New Jersey 🙂 *** 

And seeing such a beautifully grown-up tree had me thinking only one thing.  WHAT THE HECK WOULD I USE FOR A TREE SKIRT?!?  Afterall, the only one I owned was red.

Enter my friend, the pottery barn woven runner:

Yes.

It is a rug.

We bought it for $40 a long time ago for our hallway but the edges would keep curling up and it drove us both crazy so it got banished to the basement storage.  There it lived until a little light bulb went off in my head.  It doesn’t happen often…so when it does, it tends to sting.

After digging it out of the basement, we folded it in half longways (an elementary school teacher would say like a hotdog).  Then Jeremy assisted me in crawling underneath our newly decorated tree and wrapping it around the feet of the tree  until it covered the base completely.

I love how it gives a subtle textural look.  It also gives a little more weight to the tree.  And is it just me or does my runner resemble a basket as it is wrapped around the bottom? 

So there you have it folks.  One decorated christmas tree.  Is it right up your alley in style or does it leave you high and dry with a bland taste in your mouth?  Or how bout that theme – anyone feeling rustic meets disco like me?  Or riddle me this – are you a vertical or horizontal ribboner?  Or maybe you are a bead or popcorn garland kinda peep?  And finally – anyone else use a unique item as a christmas decoration like my runner-turned-tree-skirt?  Whatever your Christmas tree decor, share it with me…all of it….theme, colors, everything.  It gets me all ready for next year 🙂