We cut our tree on Black Friday every year with the grandparents. It is really my most cherished family tradition. We get hot chocolate and walk through the trees and just have a nice time. We just put it up last night - many many colored lights!
So I looked it up–the easy way to put lights on your tree by some guy who decorates a million of them for museum
Divide your tree in 4 sections. Start with front section and run lights zig zag across (the section) and in and out from bottom to top. Do each section.
(I usually do this anyway–keeps you from getting dizzy going around the tree and very easy to take the lights down afterward). Have a drink and congratulate yourself!
Another tip I found–If you want a tree with all one color light (like a blue or red tree) make one quarter of the lights white so it’s easier on the eye and will pop better.
If you have multi color lights don’t be afraid to mix bulb sizes. They’ll give more depth.
Can you tell I’m sitting here procrastinating putting on the lights? I need a good Hallmark movie to get going…
I actually thought about adding in some white round bulbs I bought on clearance at the end of summer here and there for dimension. Might try it.
The mixture of the two is striking. I love mine.
Please, no red trees. 
I think you can overdo the lights as well. You still want to see the ornaments, not just glare off the tree.
I have miniature LED blue lights and snowflake-shaped white lights.
And I have the front section of my tree done. Looking good–in the front… Keep on trucking…
Well, one of my colored light strings bit the dust so I substituted white (putting in more within the tree). I LOVE it! Really makes everything glow!
@gouf78 …doesn’t it though? I’ll never just do one or the other again.
We have had one of those small (2-3 foot) tabletop real trees for several years that I put on the mantle. It solves the problem of the cats trying to climb it and making room in my small house for a giant green pyramid. The last couple years I’ve been seeking a compromise, one 4-5 feet high I can still put on a table, but couldn’t find anything less than 6 feet.
On Sunday, I spied what looked to be that size as I was driving by a Boy Scout tree sale, and even though I wanted to wait another week or so, bought it. It’s about 4 1/2 feet and once on a table rises to about 6 1/2 feet. I’m very pleased with it, except that it’s already shedding needles like a Charlie Brown tree.
@zeebamom I have a remote control for the lights on my regular live tree. The lights get plugged into something…and the remote controls from there. It’s great! We’ve had it for a long time.
We will probably buy our tree on Sunday and put it up the following weekend. For the realmtree, we now have LED lights and I really like them. Multicolor, and not teeny but not big.
My beautiful fake tree has the lights on it. There are some regular small white lights. Then there are red and white small (1/2 inch diameter) round bulbs too.its a nice combination. That tree has a foot pedal switch, and that’s good too.
In my village a large percentage of people put their trees up outside. It is beautiful.
We also cut down our tree - lots of places to choose from in Maine! The one I want to try said they may shut down after this weekend, so I think we’ll go on Sunday.
Our tree is (heavily) pre-lit with LEDs where you can choose any single color, multi-color, or fade among the color spectrum (white, blue, red, green, yellow), blinking or static. We’ve tried them all, but prefer the static fade so we can enjoy the rainbow cycle. The tree is beautiful.
I put up the artificial tree at the office today. Mostly by myself…again. The girl who was going to help me had a customer come in, and I was finished with the tree by the time the customer left.
We’ve had a multicolor tree since the kids were little - they all just went crazy for the colors, but I always added a few strings of white lights to brighten the tree and make the colors pop. This year, I bought a few boxes of twinkle white lights that are supposed to glimmer ever so subtly. Apparently, every 10th bulb flashes, giving that effect. We shall see.
A little late to the party.
Finally got the tree up yesterday. It’s a beauty from Costco for $34.99. 8 feet tall w/star and that’s after cutting off a few inches on the trunk and a few inches from the “star stem”. I put the usual colored lights on and then swirled in 2 strands of white round bulb lights - sort of like you would use outside but not too large of a ball. Looks amazing! Just a nice change and gives it dimension to have the bigger random white bulbs. Only 40 lights total on those two strands. It’s a winner.
We were the last unlit house in our cul de sac so H put a few outside lights up yesterday. We haven’t bought our real tree yet, but the artificial one is up and lit. Still needs ornaments but we’re getting there.
We finally hit the bullet and got our tree yesterday. In previous years, we might have waited until next weekend, but with the supposed tree shortage, I was worried to wait. Plus dh is gone all week and won’t be back until next Saturday night. Years ago, we used to trek a good ways to a tree farm and cut our own. I like supporting our local farmers. Beautiful trees for $30. Eventually our kids’ weekend schedules made it tough to do this so we started purchasing from the nursery near our neighborhood. His prices are always high but it was convenient. Last week, I noticed the pickings were slim. Then we couldn’t go Saturday, and I figured that would be the most popular day. By yesterday, I knew there wouldn’t be much. My neighbor mentioned he’d gone the last few years to the tree farm we had recommended and just went on Saturday. $40, decent selection. I couldn’t remember the name, but he told me so I put it in Waze and off we went. Except, it was taking us a different way - alas, it seemed to be in the same area and I knew that we were going in the same general direction. However, when I looked at the map, I kept thinking…this is not the same. lol and behold, we are about to arrive and dh and I look at each other. NOT the same place and on top of that, very few trees left and not looking healthy. I get to talking to the owner and he says he knows the place but it had closed a couple years ago. Now I’m pissed at myself we drove so far to save about $50 bucks. But, the guy says…there another place but it’s 15 mins further away. I look at dh and we figure what the heck, we’ve come this far.
So off we go to the next place. It’s bigger for sure, so we set off looking for a Douglas fir to cut down. Unfortunately, most of what they had left were too small. Kids are getting antsy and annoyed we dragged them out on a cold Sunday when they could be watching football. We walk back to the car but decide to stop at the barn where they have precut trees. I’m a bit of a weird perfectionist when it comes to my tree, and these were pricy and not as full as I like. At this point, we need to make a decision as we had a dinner to get to. We choose a Fraser fir seemed overpriced for its size, plus a little scraggly and a little more narrow than I like. $85 later plus tip, the tree is on the car and off we go. Then dh tells me…”you know the precut trees inside are from North Carolina, not their farm.” So much for supporting our local farm and getting a reasonably priced tree!
Dh brought it inside today so I can decorate while he’s gone. I must admit now that we have it home, it’s actually perfect for the space. Its slimmer size fits better in the corner. I was annoyed yesterday as I felt we overpaid for a tree I was just settling for but now I actually really like it.
Now I just need to motivate myself to string the lights.