Tree trimming tips

There's no 'right' or 'wrong' way to decorate your Christmas tree. Your personal taste will dictate how your tree looks, but I thought I'd share some of my tips for easily creating a gorgeous tree with less stress and work.

1. Take a moment to untangle and plug in your strings of lights BEFORE you hang them on the tree to be sure there are no 'dead' sections. Finding this out later will be a huge pain in the rear.
2. Take a moment to unpack ALL your decorations before hanging any of them. Organize them by size, then start hanging the largest balls and ornaments first, then medium, then small, then extra-small, then 'filler' materials.
3. Don't hang all ornaments on the branch tips, as this will give your tree a 'flat' look. Instead, hang large and heavy ornaments on the middle of the branches to keep the branches from bending down. Large ornaments look best on the lower 1/2 of your tree. Hang medium ornaments next, then small on the upper 1/2 of your tree. Hang your smallest and lightest ornaments on the tips of branches. Having ornaments on the middle and tips of branches gives your tree more depth and dimension.
4. Use 'filler' materials that don't need to be hung from a branch to fill in any 'holes' in your tree's decoration. Some examples of 'filler' materials are natural or gold spray painted pine cones, snow flakes, holly berry springs, and stuffed figurines of snowmen, Santa, reindeer, animals wearing Santa caps, etc. These can be placed in 'holes' without needing to be hung from a branch.
5. Try to avoid an unbalance of color. You don't want lots of decorations that are the same color close together on the tree. Spread the colors all around your tree, and don't be afraid to move decorations after they've been hung if necessary.
6. Stand back from your tree from time to time as you're decorating it to view it from a distance. This may cause you to move some of the decorations right then for size and/or color balance, before the decorating is finished.
7. Avoid 'theme' trees unless you're going to have more than 1 tree. You're always going to have sentimental decorations, heirloom decorations, and decorations that were gifts from friends that won't fit into your 'theme'. So if you're having just 1 tree, don't make it a 'theme' tree, but feel free to use several ornaments of a particular theme into your tree's overall decoration.