The art of decorating Christmas trees

A C ERTAIN POINT OF V IEW

Each family’s strategy behind decorating their Christmas trees differs, resulting in wholly unique final products. Some light a clean, crisp look to their trees, utilizing color coordinated bulbs, lights and tinsel placed perfectly apart to create a dignified and distinguished feel. Others are haphazard free-for-alls where as many homemade ornaments are jammed in too little space so that the tree underneath is barely visible. Once a tradition has been established, however, it is hard to change it.

Growing up, our Christmas tree generally resembled the latter one I described. While we certainly used some of those more pristine looking bulbs, they were often crammed next to stars crafted from popsicle sticks and glitter or a very cool Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story ornament that my mom loves. It may not have always been the most cohesive vision, but it was always fun to decorate as a family and I always thought it turned out looking pretty good, though there may have been a fair bit of bias there.

Mikaela and I have decorated a fair few of our own Christmas trees by now, but I’ll admit, there is still a bit of an adjustment to be made there.

You see, my family never used tinsel garland strands on any of our trees growing up. It was always just lights, ornaments and a tree topper.

However, Mikaela has had not one, but two different colors of tinsel strands for our tree. Which, in and of itself is not a bad thing. The issue comes when she forgets when it should go on, and I forget that we are even supposed to put it on in the first place.

Our tree decorating definitely takes the “shove as many random ornaments as you can” approach, littering the tree with everything from cute penguins and snowman to Pikachu and the Mandalorian to a Santa Claus face constructed from pins and sequins that I made when I was seven.

So here I am, admiring the hodgepodge of Christmas spirit, when Mikaela pulls out the red and gold tinsel strands.

“Uh…” I say as I notice her unraveling it. “What?” “We were supposed to put that on before the ornaments.” “What? No. It goes on after.” “It definitely does not. I can guarantee that.” “We’ve always put it on after.” “We haven’t, and you’ll see why.” After much tangling and weaving through the very full tree, it became very apparent that the tinsel definitely goes on before the ornaments. Ah well, it got done and the tree looks as good as ever (depending on taste). And now I have it in print when the tinsel is supposed to go on, so hopefully future Nathaniel will remember next year.

NATHANIEL U NDERWOOD REPORTER

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