When it is time to set up the Christmas tree it seems a whole other level of excitement fills the air. For most people over the years have settled on the type and kind of tree they want in their house, others must decide if they want an artificial tree or a real one. There are a number of pros and cons in deciding which kind of tree would be best for themselves and their families.

Artificial trees

The good thing about artificial trees is that you don’t have to worry about the needles drying out. The needles won’t shed on your carpet so you aren’t constantly vacuuming the carpet or hardwood floor. You won’t have the hassle of any pets constantly nipping at the needles as you would with a live tree.

You don’t have to decide if it’s fresh enough so that you don’t have to trim some of it off the bottom in order for the tree to have a longer, fresher life. You don’t have to fret about fastening the stand screws tightly against the bark so the tree won’t tip. By using an artificial tree, you can just drop the base securely into the stand.

Purchasing an artificial tree means you won’t have to wonder if you brought any pests inside your home that can damage your houseplants. Plus, there’s not the allergy factor with artificial trees like there can be with real ones.

Unlike real Christmas trees, you can buy artificial ones during the year and you won’t have to wait until the last minute to bring it home. You can get a jump on getting your Christmas items in place so that when the holidays arrive, you’re not out in the frantic shopping pace. With the ease of availability, you can buy more than one for different rooms in your house. You can get one for your children to decorate.

Real trees

On the flip side, real Christmas trees have a wonderful scent. They smell like Christmas. The limbs are fuller and you won’t have a plastic pole poking through the limbs. The tree won’t have a plastic appearance.

The branches are easier to decorate than the sometimes thicker branches of artificial trees. Since the branches are attached to the tree, you won’t have the frustration of trying to match color coded branches to little slots.

Real Christmas trees are easier to take down and get out of your home. When the season is over, you can bag your real Christmas tree and many cities have a recycling program where used Christmas trees are turned into mulch, thus helping the environment.

With artificial Christmas trees, you have to remove each branch by section and make sure they’re labeled. Then you have to store them in boxes or plastic containers so that the branch tips won’t break off. Once you get it packed away, everything has to be lugged into storage or the attic.

There are positives and negatives to either choice. Only you and your family know what is best for the occasion. Whatever the decision, you will enjoy the best Christmas tree for you throughout the holiday.

As the holidays approach, it is time to get the Christmas decorating ideas flowing. Put on some of your favorite holiday tunes to get you into the mood. Then decide where should you begin?

Since the outside of your home is the very first sight people see, you can start there and work your way inside the home or you can work from the inside out – whichever direction you take really isn’t as important as getting the job done.

Outdoor Christmas Décor

Outside of your house, if you’re putting decorations on your rooftop – things like waving Santa or Santa in his sleigh or the lighted, animated reindeer start there first. You’ll want to put them up before you string the lights.

Next, hang the lights, the icicle lights are a hot selling item this year and look great on any home. Once you have the lights in place, don’t forget to wrap the ends where they connect with tape to keep any moisture from getting in.

After the lights are done, you can start on the bushes or trees in your front yard. The net lights make decorating small to medium hedge bushes a breeze and the cool to touch LED lights are good in trees.

If you have taller evergreens, you can decorate them like you would an indoor tree, complete with lighted gift boxes beneath the tree. When the trees are finished, set up each display in an area of your yard. As you go along, constantly test for any lights that fail to light. You don’t want to get everything hooked up and then have to begin the hunt for a burned out or broken bulb.

Line your walkway with decorations and place poinsettias by the front door. Also, don’t forget to decorate the mailbox with a holiday covering.

Indoor Christmas Décor

Inside the house, decorate the mantle with garland (fresh or artificial boughs either one) and then if you’re going for a traditional look, you can weave miniature lights through the garland. If you’re aiming for a country Christmas or a Victorian Christmas, instead, loop strings of cranberry beads so that they dangle down in small loops from the top of the mantle.

Set out your Christmas villages and if you don’t have a collection of them, now is the time to start. They bring certain nostalgia to the home and are a lot of fun to set up. The lighted ones are perfect with any kind of theme.

If you want a complete holiday décor inside, don’t forget to replace your rugs with those that are in holiday colors or with those that have holiday decorations on them. There are many different Christmas decorating ideas you can choose from – the key to success is in taking time to plan it out.

While some people like a down home kind of Christmas, many others love the thought of an elegant holiday. Unfortunately, without a background in Christmas decorating, it can be difficult to know exactly how to go about making your own holiday have that elegant look.

With the tips listed below, you can have the kind of décor you’ve always wanted. Elegance equals unity. This is where many people go wrong when decorating for Christmas. They simply use too many colors – and while that might turn out to be eye catching, it’s distracting and busy.

Working with colors

You want the colors to work together and cool colors are always more elegant than warmer ones. For example, red and green decorations, while traditional Christmas colors, when placed together, don’t project an air of elegance.

The top two choices for elegant color are gold or white or gold and white together. You need to go with those colors throughout your home – one smooth color scheme. It may seem like white won’t look very inviting or seem very much like Christmas, but wait until you have it all together and you’ll be amazed.

Outdoor elegance

On your walkway outside, use white luminaries along the walkway and leading up to the front steps or porch.  For elegance in electric lighting, never pick the bigger lights. Opt for the smaller ones inside – and yes, even outside your home.

Have you ever noticed how some restaurants use those tiny white Christmas lights all year round? That’s because those lights project an elegant dining experience. When you’re placing lights on your tree, use the smaller lights and use as many strands as your tree can comfortably hold.

Indoor elegance

Instead of choosing poinsettias as your flower to decorate with, choose dozens of white roses and put them in delicate glass vases throughout your house. For a table centerpiece, place white pillar candles on a mirror base. Cover the edges of the base with gold or white ribbon.

Decorate the corners of the rooms with different wrapped gifts. Make sure the gifts are wrapped in gold paper and tied with white ribbon bows or do the opposite. Wrap the gifts in white paper and use gold ribbon to form the bows.

Take a collection of Christmas balls in white (or gold if you’re working with two colors) and place them in a large, heavy glass bowl. Place the bowl in the center of your coffee table.

Replace all of the different colored guest towels in each of your bathroom with thick white ones. Lay a small hand towel beside each sink and place a gold ribbon around the middle of it.

When it’s time to serve the meal, serve the food on only white dishes or gold ones. If you use place cards, use white cards with gold calligraphy writing. When you’re finished with your Christmas decorating, your home will have that elegance you’ve been striving to achieve.

Remember those great childhood holidays in your neighborhood when Santa gaily waved at you and your friends from the rooftops? Back then, those animated Christmas decorations were simple, yet still caught the magic of the holidays.

You and your friends were thrilled as you counted down the days until Santa arrived. You can still find some of that same magic in the animated decorations found in retail stores and in online shops. These decorations aren’t as simple as the ones from years ago. They’re livelier, brighter and built to last for many years.

These delightful animated decorations can turn any yard and any home into a place of wonder and awe. You can thrill your own family and anyone passing in front of your home by setting up an animated display.

Beware of procrastination

A word to those of you who procrastinate when buying decorations: the animated yard decorations are the first ones to sell out because many people start with their yards when putting up holiday décor.

The best animated Christmas decorations can disappear long before the big day gets here, so don’t put off getting the decorations you want. Once the big ticket items sell out like that, most retailers don’t restock. Even online stores run out of Christmas decorations if they’re a hot item, so go ahead and order yours.

What kinds of animated decorations can you find?

You can find favorite childhood fairytale characters riding in sleds, on trains or waving as a standalone figure. There are animated angels, ice skating penguins and nutcrackers marching all in a row.

You can find groups of dear or large teddy bears just waiting to come to life at Christmas.  One of the faster selling animated yard decorations still remains the large snow globes filled with various scenes. In some snow globes, you’ll find multi colored presents and animated figures spinning in circles. Some have Disney characters standing beneath falling snow.

Start small and grow through the years

Best of all, with animated Christmas decorations, you don’t have to start big. You can start small and build your collection of animated pieces. Many people assume that it takes more time to set up animated Christmas decorations than putting up regular yard ornaments but nothing could be further from the truth.

Animated decorations are usually quite easy to set up. Many of these decorations are also adaptable to music displays.  Imagine the wonder on the your children’s faces as they see the toy soldiers marching in line to Christmas music or when they see Santa’s sleigh up on the rooftop as it takes off and lands. There’s a good reason animated Christmas decorations routinely outsell other decorations – the motion and the magic together make the displays truly memorable.

While many people celebrate the holiday, few know the history of why people have Christmas trees as part of their décor. The practice of setting up a Christmas tree first began as early as the 1500s as a German custom but the idea wasn’t widely accepted in the beginning.

Many areas of Germany didn’t start celebrating the Christmas holidays with a tree until the later part of the 1800s. By the first of the 1900s, two classes of people across the sea, the wealthy and royalty started putting up Christmas trees. From there, the tradition was born.

Old customs travel to new lands

When the first wave of people left their country, came to, and settled in the New World, many brought with them the tradition of putting up evergreens inside their home. They also decorated small trees outside their home with whatever treasures nature provided.

Here in America, however, the Christmas tree was much slower to catch on. Some people thought the Christmas tree was a symbol associated with Christians, but Christians were not open to the idea of having a tree in the midst of their holiday celebration.

It was regarded with suspicion and religious people believed the tree to be a symbol of paganism even though that belief was incorrect. Because of that belief, many Christians refused to have anything to do with Christmas trees. Slowly over the years the custom caught on.

The commercialization of Christmas

Christmas trees were first marketed in the United States in the mid 1800s and were also accepted into the White House by the residing President. Christmas trees were set up in public displays, trimmed with decorations and people were awed by the beauty. Toward the latter part of the 1800s a well known retail store saw the need for artificial trees and began selling them to customers.

In some countries, Winter Solstice heralded the time to set up the Christmas tree close to the arrival of Christmas day. The first week of January was slated as time to remove the tree and all its trimmings.

Modern day customs

Today, the Christmas tree is customarily set up shortly after the Thanksgiving holiday but some families set it up earlier. Taking down the tree is generally still done sometime during the first week of January.

This is due to the old wives tale that what you are doing on January 1, you will do all year long. Since taking down the tree is hard work, folks believed that by taking it down then, that meant they would work hard all year long.

Whether the tree is put up after Thanksgiving or taken down after New Year’s Day, this is one custom that is loved and practiced by many. A well decorated Christmas tree can add a festive sparkle to your holiday.

Every year you will find an annual Swarovski holiday ornament just waiting to be placed on your Christmas tree and this year is no exception. This beautiful Christmas ornament joins past annual and limited editions and will provide elegance and beauty this season. The Swarovski ornaments and other precision cut class items also make elegant gifts for those you love.  Read more »