And to be honest, it looks better with the plaid ribbon, but…

Nate set up the tree on Saturday, I put on the ribbon, and the kids put on the ornaments, reserving the glass balls for me. Which I added yesterday. I hadn’t counted them before, or if I had, I had forgotten. We have 12 dozen glass balls that go on the tree. There are other glass balls that I have for decorating other things, but for the tree, 12 dozen. That’s tons! BUT, and here’s my magical-gorgeous-tree secret… (maybe this is already common knowledge), if you put a ton of cheap but pretty glass balls on your tree, it ties everything together and looks beautiful.

Seriously.

I had a friend stop by yesterday and comment on how nice the tree looked and how our ornaments are all coordinated, whereas hers are a mismatched hodge-podge.

Not so. I walked her to the tree for a closer look. We have oodles of kid ornaments made over the years. The paper mittens connected by yarn, the foam star with puffy glitter glue that says “Olivia,”

popcicle stick Christmas trees with glued on sequins (which are really cool, actually, but they’re still popsicle sticks), the sticky bow hung by a piece of yarn

as well as all the mis-matched ornament gifts we’ve received from friends over the years and purchased ourselves. Not the least of which are the many superhero ornaments, which, to be honest, are the only reason Nate hauls the tree up from the garage and sets it up every year.

I have my porcelain ballerina set ($1 each at Fred Meyer 10 years ago) and barnyard animal set (don’t remember where they came from, but they hardly match the ballerinas) and a number of non-coordinating dough ornaments… to name only a few. There are tons. And before the glass balls go on, the tree is just ok. Not all that pretty.

Glass balls are awesome. I bought ours in 2005 at Michaels. They were having some sale, Buy 1 get 1, or buy 2 get 1, or buy one get one half off…. I don’t remember. But they were super cheap. And I love them. Most of them are the smaller, plain ones that come 12 to a box, but there are some bigger, patterned ones (still cheap) that come 4 to a box that make it look amazing.

If you’re interested, I can get a little more specific. I chose one main, large patterned ball (red on red stripes). I have 20-24 of those. I have a couple sets of other larger patterned balls that don’t match, but look nice together. Then I have about 7 dozen small, matte red balls. I bought them at different times, so the exact shade of red varies a bit. Doesn’t matter. 2 dozen small, shiny gold balls, and 1 dozen small light green ones. I think the key is having mostly one color, with significantly less of the others, just to accent.

It’s not all matchy-matchy, especially when combined with the hodge-podge of ornaments I mentioned earlier. But it looks really nice.

There’s my tip.

It makes me so sad when people come over, see my tree, and then say things about how I’m creative and have a gorgeous tree and they aren’t and don’t.

Oh, don’t say that! It’s not hard.

And you don’t have to spend a zillion dollars on expensive matching ornaments. More than that, you don’t have to hide or get rid of the sentimental (not necessarily pretty) ornaments that don’t “match.” It all adds to the charm.

Finally, there’s Kringus.

(A little info if you’re lost. And you most likely are).

I know he’s not for everyone, but he cracks the heck out of us. I think we’re going to laminate the eyes this year so we can reuse them. We’re also going to laminate a set of eyes for each of the kids so as they move on, they can take Kringus with them.

Happy Christmas!