TulaneLSU’s Official Guide to Christmas Decorating

There is perhaps no more a worthy and significant aesthetic endeavor than decorating for Christmas. Whether you are an outdoor or indoor artist or both, I would like to bring together some decorating tips over the next few days and weeks.

As a child, I spent most of my Christmas school holiday as a time to decorate. My classmates who came over for my family’s December 23rd Christmas Tea were amazed by my skill, but by middle school, it became a source of mockery used against me. I even heard some parents joke once about me, calling me “the demented stepchild of Al Copeland and Martha Stewart.” Words hurt, but they will not deter my desire to give light and beauty to the world.

I have many years of practice, but I realize I am not perfect and I look forward to reading your suggestions and secrets. Together we can make our neighborhoods glow. We can help create wonderful memories for children and families who see our hard work. Please, my new friends of the Home and Garden Board, let us come together to edify and build each other, while building greater glory of His Kingdom, who came to us in the child named Jesus of Nazareth.

Outdoor Tree Lighting

Wrapping trees properly requires both a significant investment in time and money. Anyone can throw some lights on their trees, but making it look beautiful takes real skill and time.

I use the four finger spacing method. After measuring with your fingers long enough the spacing will come naturally, but until that time use your fingers to space. Some actually mark the distances with a Sharpie. This is unnecessary, wasteful and leaves a tree with a tacky, unwanted tattoo.

Plan which branches you will light. The wider the canopy of lights the more impressive it will appear to your spectators. With that, plan ahead where your light junctions will be. Nothing looks worse than a poorly spaced crisscrossing tangle of lights haphazardly thrown together. For your first year I highly recommend diagramming on paper your plan.

If you’ve not done this before, it will take far more lights than you believe it will. For each tree I have lighted I used anywhere from 20-40 strands of lights. Using less will make the tree look partially done and honestly would be better left bare as doing something halfway tells your neighbors that you are lazy, cheap, and a moron. Unless you want to announce those undesirable traits, light fully and abundantly. Think of lights as water. You wouldn’t give your best trees just a sip — no you would lavish your broad oaks with an everflowing stream.

Unless you have multiple power outlets near, your trees to accomplish this generosity of lighting will require LED lights. Incandescents are cheaper, but you will be limited in number by the power draw of the warmer lights. As a result you must find beautiful LED lights. I recommend the Sams LED Pet G40s. These are $20 a strand, but you may connect up to 22 strands together, or at least I did. Check the labeling yourself. At $20 a strand this will not be a cheap investment but it will be worth it. I bought 120 strands of these lights last year at the sams clearance sale and I am kicking myself for not buying more. They are the best LEDs on the market today.

Lighting the heights of the tree will take great effort or adequate tools. I rent a bucket truck each year. If you have another lifting device or scaffolding that may work. Although I have heard of some climbing the latticework of branches, I recommend against that as it is a safety hazard. Height and width are necessary to bring out the beauty of the tree. Don’t skimp on this detail; to skimp is to be an uncultured urchin who just lights the trunk up to 10-12 feet because they believed the tree was worth no more than a cheap, Lowe’s bought ladder.

If you are not going to go 100% with tree lighting, please, don’t even bother starting. I hate seeing halfway done trees or trees that are unevenly spaced. You don’t halfway dress your child or put a shirt on your child’s legs. So too don’t be sloppy or disjointed with your outdoor tree lighting.

It will take many hours — approximately 30 this year for me to do 8 trees. But by the many uplifting smiles and multitudes of drivebys already the investment had paid dividends that are more than worth it. Blessings to you in your artistic decorating.
.