Follow these tips to hang lights on Christmas tree like pro
When you’re learning how to put lights on a tree, you figure out pretty quickly that hanging Christmas tree lights is easy. Getting the lights to look just right and taking them down at the end of the holiday season, however, is much harder.
Many times, people make the mistake of putting their lights on the Christmas tree haphazardly, crossing strands to form a wire net that’s nearly impossible to remove. Fortunately, there are a few strategies to try to make your Christmas lights easy to put up.
Whether you decide to hang your lights horizontally or vertically, use these tips from floral design expert Michael Walter to become a Christmas tree decorating pro.
Start by figuring out how many lights you need for your Christmas tree. A good rule is to average 100 lights for every foot of the tree. Before you start, plug in the lights to check if all the bulbs are working. Leave them on while you work so you can see how they look on the tree, and so you can easily address dark spots.
Horizontal is the most traditional way to install lights — traveling around and around the tree to wind in the lights. To give your tree a professional look, string them a little randomly to give the lights a more organic feel. As you work, place some lights deeper into the branches and place some closer to the front to create depth.
A dead zone of lights occurs when you connect one string of lights to another: Hide the unsightly green plug by pushing it deep into the branches.
Many top decorating experts recommend installing your lights from the bottom to the top. Decorators at New York City’s Rockefeller Center use a trunk-to-tip method to create “not just a shell of light but an inner glow and a three-dimensionality that cannot be achieved any other way,” says David Murbach, manager of the center’s gardens division.
To follow this tree lighting technique, divide the tree vertically into three sections (think trunk to tip) and string the lights by section. Beginning at the bottom, weave each string in and out of the branches, to the top of the tree and back.