A lot of advice on how to decorate a Christmas tree starts with what to buy. This guide starts with the order you do it in, because the order is what makes a tree look considered rather than crowded. The short version: lights, then the garland, then the largest decorations, then the small ones, then a final edit. Below is each step, a few common questions, and how to build the tree around a few matched sets rather than a box of odds and ends.
How to decorate a Christmas tree step by step
- Place and shape the tree. Set it up where it will stay, away from radiators and other heat. Pull every branch out and down so there are no gaps. On an artificial tree this takes longest, and it is the easiest step to rush.
- Lights. Use warm-white battery fairy lights, starting at the base close to the trunk and working upwards. Weave them in and out of the branches so the tree glows from inside and not only at the tips. Keep them cool to the touch, and switch them off when you leave the room.
- The topper, if the tree is tall. If you need a stepladder, put the star or angel on now; leaning over a finished tree knocks decorations off. On a small tree it can go on last.
- Garland or ribbon. Drape it in loose swags, or run it from top to bottom in a few drops.
- Your largest decorations. Spread them round the whole tree, some on the outside and some set into the branches.
- Medium and small pieces. Use them to fill the gaps the large ones leave.
- Step back and edit. Look from across the room and move anything that clumps.
What order to decorate a Christmas tree
The rule behind that list is simple: whatever is hardest to add later goes on first. Lights have to be threaded through the branches, which is close to impossible once decorations are hanging. A garland goes on before the baubles that would otherwise snag it. Large decorations come before small ones because they set the spacing.
Within each stage, work round the whole tree rather than finishing one side, and from the inside out.
When decorating a Christmas tree, what goes on first?
Lights, every time. Test them before they go on, because finding a dead string on a finished tree means taking everything off again.
If you are hanging our decorations, stick to warm-white battery fairy lights; on a large tree you may need more than one string. Hang every decoration clear of the bulbs. The lights should stay cool to the touch; switch them off when you leave the room and at bedtime.
Does a Christmas tree need a garland?
No. A garland is optional, and plenty of good trees have none. It draws a line across the tree, which helps when lots of small decorations need tying together. If your decorations are bold and fairly few, you may not miss it.
If you use one, loose swags that dip between the branches look traditional, while straight drops from top to bottom look more modern and suit a narrow tree. Ribbon, in loose loops or bows, does the same job.
Our colour-block bell garland (£49.99) is a string of two-tone bells, navy with white and yellow with sky blue among them. Draped round the tree in loose loops, it does the work of a garland and a set of bells at once.
Decorating set by set
The quickest way to make a tree look planned is to pick two or three colours and buy your Christmas tree decorations in matched sets. A set gives you the same colours several times over, so you can repeat them round the tree and the eye reads one scheme. A box of singles, each lovely on its own, tends to read as a jumble.
Here are four schemes built from sets in our Christmas collection. Every piece is made by hand, so each one varies slightly from the next.
Red and white
The classic, and it suits almost any room. Start with the red and white bauble set of 6 (£24.99): four round baubles, a drop and a flat star, painted with candy stripes and flowers. Add the bell ornaments set of 6 (£29.99), white bells with bands of red dots, each on its own braided cord. For a third shape in the same colours, the toadstool set of 4 (£19.99) has red caps with white spots.
Mustard, blue and cream
For something warmer, the Scandi-style bauble set of 6 (£29.99) mixes mustard, amber brown, cream and cobalt blue across five round baubles and a flat star. Pair it with the Christmas tree ornament set of 12 (£49.99): tree-shaped ornaments in navy, sky blue, mustard and white, all painted with dots. Hung between the baubles, they fill the gaps.
Green and white
The goose, drum and bauble set (£19.99) has four pieces: two white geese, a green and white harlequin drum with a gold rim, and a green bauble with a bold white check. It works as an accent among plain green baubles, or on its own on a tabletop tree.
A traditional mix
If you would rather have the classic shapes in one box, the Christmas ornament set of 9 (£34.99) includes baubles, stars, a striped candy cane, a striped oval and a white gift box with a red ribbon, in red, green, white, gold and yellow.
How to decorate a Christmas tree like a professional
- Split every set. Never hang a set together. Spread its pieces in a loose zigzag from top to bottom, so the same colours turn up all the way round.
- Go deep as well as out. Hang some decorations well inside the branches, near the trunk. Decorations only on the tips make a tree look flat from the side.
- Larger pieces lower down. The wide lower branches take bigger decorations; smaller ones suit the short branches near the top. Hang heavier pieces nearer the trunk, where a branch is strongest.
- Do the squint test. Stand across the room and half-close your eyes. Dark patches show where a gap needs filling; bright clumps show where to take something off.
- Stop a little early. A tree with some green showing between decorations looks better than one where every branch is covered.
What are traditional Christmas tree decorations?
The classic British list is short: round baubles, a star or an angel on top, bells, tinsel or a garland, and small hanging figures such as birds, drums and soldiers, mostly in red, green, gold and white. Candy canes and little wrapped gift boxes are common now too.
Decorated trees were known in Britain before Queen Victoria, but they became popular after 1848, when the Illustrated London News printed an engraving of the royal family round their tree at Windsor Castle.
What do baubles represent at Christmas?
Nobody knows for certain. The explanation most often given goes back to the paradise tree, a fir hung with apples that stood for the Garden of Eden in medieval German religious plays. Round baubles are said to stand in for those apples. Glass baubles came much later, in the 19th century, and are usually traced to glassblowers in Lauscha, in Germany.
When should Christmas decorations go up in the UK?
There is no fixed rule. Traditionally, decorations went up close to Christmas Eve. Many people now start on Advent Sunday, which falls on 29 November in 2026, or on the first weekend of December. A real tree dries out in a warm room, so buy it later rather than earlier and keep it watered. An artificial tree can go up whenever you like.
The traditional day for taking everything down is Twelfth Night, 5 or 6 January depending on how you count.
Looking after your decorations
- They are decorations, not toys. Keep them out of reach of young children and pets. With a toddler at home, use the upper branches only.
- Indoors and dry. Keep them away from candles, open flames, heaters and hot bulbs.
- Dust with a soft, dry brush.
- Store them wrapped. Wrap each piece in tissue and keep them in a rigid box, somewhere dry inside the heated part of the house rather than a loft, garage or shed.
Spare decorations do not have to stay in the box: a few baubles heaped in a bowl make an easy table piece. There are ideas in what to put in a decorative bowl for Christmas and in Christmas centrepiece ideas using a bowl.
You can see every set together in the Christmas collection.
