1 Deck the Halls

We are taking this lovely Saturday to put up our Christmas tree—an overwhelming task at times. Luckily Martha is on hand with a few secrets to trimming a tree…

1. Choose a spot to display your tree. I recently learned that I am not alone in my need to decide where the Christmas tree will go before buying a house. Glad to know there are other psycho Christmas fanatics that worry about tree placement in July.

2. Place tree in water tight stand & prune any stray limbs. If your preference is an artificial tree, you get to skip right on to the next step, you lucky goose!

3. String the lights. Now, you overachievers that have the artificial tree with lights pre-strung can just go ahead and plug it in. I’ll stay here and battle my noble fir.

4. Add ribbon, garland, popcorn…popcorn? Do people still do that? Ah well, whatever floats your boat.

5. Organize & hang ornaments. If you are aiming for a particular color scheme, select the ornaments that fit what you have in mind. Then, place the larger ornaments on the tree first and fill in with smaller guys. Don’t neglect the back of the tree!

6. Keep fragile ornaments safe.

Hang antique and fragile ornaments near the top of the tree, where they will be less likely to get knocked off by pets and passersby. I learned this lesson many moons ago when our childhood cat, Teek, decided that climbing the Christmas tree trunk would be a good idea.


Hope this helps, and remember as long as you can keep your kitten from shimmying up the trunk, you’ll be in ship shape.


-Cara & Martha