How to place the lights on your Christmas tree

We are almost there. Winter hit us after a long and hot summer, and fall seemed hesitant to drive away the warm season. It will soon be the time to begin thinking about how to decorate our home in view to Christmas, the ultimate holiday.

Just like evry year, we will face the dilemma of how we should decorate our Tree, but most of all, of how we should place the lights on it so that it looks sparkling and creates a perfect atmosphere; lastly, it has to be safe. It seems easy, but it’s not. If you want to proceed the best way possible, you need to set an exact goal and adopt a technique that lets you create what you have in mind and get the best results.

First of all, you need to choose your Christmas Tree. We already wrote much about that, especially lingering on pros and cons of real trees on one side, and artificial trees on the other side. The choice of the tree will be tightly connected to what we plan to do with lights. In fact, many artificial trees are already equipped with LED lights, solving a long series of problems mainly concerning the issue of wires connected to the light strings; being already integrated into the branches, there is no risk to find them hanging down, and look awful, besides being a dangerous threat to children, pets and… distracted friends.

If you prefer a real tree, or an artificial tree that has no integrated lights, you will need to plan an efficient technique to place the lights on your Tree and get a final uniformity and a great effect.

Lights will have to be in harmony with the decorations of course, and will have to be placed so that they are emphasized, highlighting brightness and colors.

First, you will have to decide how many lights your Tree will need, what type (LED or incandescent), cold or warm light, monochrome or multicolored.

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LED or incandescent lights? Warm or cold light?

Modern LED lights are surely brighter than the traditional incandescent lights. They also offer a remarkable advantage in price, as they guarantee a great saving on your bills. They are then worth the initial investment, which is anyway quite limited, considering that for a Christmas tree that is about 2 meters tall, you will need to spend about 60-90 Euro.

Incandescent lights require more attention, especially concerning safety, but offer a warmer light compared to LED, and a more traditional atmosphere. Plus, energy saving lights will not cost much more than the modern LED lights.

There are also solar-powered lights, ideal for trees on the outside, and globe lights, which are delicate and offer a great scenic effect.

Concerning the choice between warm or cold lights, you can choose them based on the furniture and color of your home, or the decorations that you chose to hang on your Tree. Cold colors, such as white with blue shades, enphasize elegance, while warm colors, such as yellow and red, create a more enveloping and suffused atmosphere. It is imprtant to choose the color trying to avoid violent contrasts.

Safety first

Safety regulations must be kept in mind while choosing any kind of light. Better to avoid lights of questionable origins. You always have to remember that they are electronic devices with tension inside that can reach up to 230V, and that will be switched on for weeks in our houses, therefore it is fundamental to know how they were made. First, you need to check the CE marking, which guarantees the respect of the safety regulations established at European level concerning the minimum necessary requirements so that lighting decorations can be sold inside the EU. Some producers of lighting decorations send their products to independent labs, which give them further certifications, guaranteeing higher quality. Periodic controls at the production fatories allow other certifications such as GS and IMQ.

Check then that the CE marking is correct and not counterfeit, that the producer country and the details of the import are clearly reported, and that all information are written in Italian.

Once the box is open, it is good practice to test the traction of the wires connected to the controller to make sure they don’t come out, and the resistance of the controller itself, pushing it hard.

If the lights will be placed outside, they mush have the Schuko plug. Besides the generic instruction “for external use”, they must report the grade of protection against wheater events: from IPX3 (againts spraying water), to IPX4 (against splashing of water), IPX5 (water jets), IPX7 (immersion).

Lastly, but that is not to be taken for granted, you must be careful when installing. You need to be cautios, protecting wires, sockets, especially with children around, and if you plan to decorate your tree outside, remember to protect plugs and transformers from temperature changes.

If one of the bulbs on the string is burned or broken, it must be replaced with one of the same kind, or just give up using that string at all.

How many lights?

How many lights are necessary to decorate a Christmas tree? It depends. It depends on the size of the tree, of course, but also on the personal taste of who will decorate it. For a small tree, around fifty lights are enough; for a tree about 2 meters tall, you might need even three hundred. There is no fixed scheme, also because the effect changes a lot according to the type of decoration chosen and the effect you want to obtain. The important thing is to distribute them well, leaving no empty spaces that would create an ugly effect, and keep in mind that after the lights, we will have to place decorations and garlands, which should be illuminated and enlighted by the lights.

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Remember that LED lights are much brighter than incandescence lights, so you’ll need fewer.

How to put lighting decorations together on your Christmas tree

There are different techniques, different schools of thought.

You can begin from the top of the tree and wrap the light strings all around it, going down in a spyral until the base and fix the wire to the pedestal. The string can be placed among the bigger branches and hidden behind the smallest branches. The same effect can be obtained starting from the base of the tree towards the top, but hiding the wire could be more difficult. A beautiful effect can be obtained by creating an internal and an external spyral, that will evenly fill all the areas of the Tree.

Starting from the top, you can draw a triangle with the light chains and then fill it with lights fixed to every branch.

Alternatively, you can take many short light strings and wrap them following a spyral pattern around each single branch, so that the wire is hidden by the needles.

In addition, it is very popular to drape the lights among the branches, starting from the top or the bottom, using at least two light chains, one for the inside and one for the outside of the branches. Also in this case the wire will have to be placed properly so that it is not visible, maybe using some bands to fix it to the branches.

The most precious decorations should be placed near a spotlight

Watch out for empty and dark areas.