I put way too much thought into my theme each Christmas. I settled on cranberry as the primary color after last Christmas and I actually bought decorations at after Christmas sales in anticipation. Of course, Chris wants to know why it can’t be traditional colors every year. As if! Cranberry is closer to cherry red than we have had for a few years so I hope he likes it.

We love Country Boy’s Garden Center for its great selection of real trees fresh from North Carolina. We tried a few parking lot Christmas trees in the past but they didn’t look as good once they were fully illuminated. Country Boy’s hangs the trees individually in a well-lit environment so you can inspect the tree from all angles. We were able to score a fluffy Douglas fir for $75 which is pretty good in this economy.

This year putting the lights on was a struggle. After three attempts (wrong prong that wouldn’t fit any other strands, a blown strand, etc.), we finally got the lights in place. My typical process is decorating the tree and then photographing and tweaking until I am satisfied. It helps to photograph the tree because then you can see the errant branches, spots that need more lights, weird groupings of ornaments, etc. It is random but it works for me. I needed some more wired, velvet ribbon (Michaels Stores) and a few more gold ornaments (Hobby Lobby).

My inspiration came from the main White House Christmas Tree (2020) and a tree in the Country Boy’s Christmas section.

The topper consists of sparkly gold feather picks (Hobby Lobby), dried grass from my yard, frosted cranberries and gold crystal encrusted picks (Country Boy’s). The cranberry velvet bows give me Samantha the American Girl doll vibes. I was able to incorporate the velvet cheetah balls from last last year which was a plus.

It may have taken a week of arranging and rearranging but I like how it turned out. Leave your thoughts in the comments!