What's your tree decorating style?

that seems complicated to me - but my style is - open box of random Christmas ornaments and let kids decorate to their heart's content

I have ornaments I love. I toss them on, trying to keep them relatively evenly spaced. I want to buy a prelit tree, but I can't justify the expense, since I have a really nice artificial tree.

My ornaments range from one our DS made in preschool to some Swarovski snowflakes. If I love it, it goes on the tree. I don't care about theme.

White lights, silver balls, Swarovski snowflake ornaments, and a silver and white angel my parents purchased for their very first Christmas 55 years ago.

I do ribbon before the ornaments because I use it like garland. I love filler. Helps with any wierd spaces in the tree. I don't do groupings either. I do 2 trees and think they both look great.

When the kids were little it was whatever they wanted to put on it.  Now that they're older only dd really cares and her tastes have changed from popsicle stick ornaments. lol  

We bought an artificial tree several years ago (BEST thing EVER!!) so I put it up and turn on the lights and leave it like that till dd gets home from college. I love the lights in the morning before the sun comes up. Dd likes color schemes so a few years ago we went to Target and bought a box of red, a box of silver, etc. Over the years we've added blue, gold, green, and purple. Each box has five or six types of ball ornaments so it's not like putting 25 of the exact same ball on, it's just that they're all the same color scheme. The first year we did this dd was adamant that she wanted only white lights (the tree has either colored lights, white lights, or you can put both on) and gold and silver ornaments. So I let her do that. Then one morning before she got up I changed all the gold ones for blue, so it was blue and silver. hehe So now I do that periodically, just change out the color. Dh rolls his eyes at us but I told him he gets no opinion since he never helps decorate, except to stick on his Danish red birds. Which clash with some of the color schemes so dd and I will take them off during the day and stick them back on right before dh comes home from work. 

Yeah, we're odd. But we have fun with it. Fun that we never had when we had the awful real tree year after year. This artificial tree was a game changer! 

We have two trees ...

The big green "kids tree" is in the family room and is prelit and I step away and let them decorate it anyway they want      The dd's are now teens and it is still haphazard but looks great   

The big white "mum's tree" is in the living room and I decorate it with care ... all of the lights are white and blue ... the ornaments are white, blue or silver and are placed strategically ... there is also a bunch of wide blue and silver ribbon bows that I use to fill in space ... I just bought a pretty LED star for the top this year      

Yup, I'm a little anal about "my" tree which is why we have two   

I have two boxes of "cheap crap my parents bought when they were po" and I treasure them (they still have the TG&Y sticker on the box and were purchased in 1972).  They were on our tree all the years I was growing up - we never got rid of them.  I have a little artificial tree I decorate just with those ornaments.

I change my style every few years – but spent a lot of money on new stuff last year, so we'll go with that again this year. I do have a few special ornaments that I put on every year.

We don't do a theme/decor tree. We have ornaments from childhood, our early years etc. My kids get one or two special ornaments that are pertinent to their lives every year. We have some really tacky ones that make us smile or laugh and some gorgeous high end ones as well. We put colored lights on and somehow it works. I've seen trees that are so artistic and well designed and they are beautiful but our mish mash trees mean so much I don't think I could ever ditch them.

My tree is pre-lit and I use silver, pale blue, and pale lavender balls. I also collect snowmen and reindeer in the same color scheme. I use plastic pearls as my garland.

I completely agree with this. Creating depth is very important.

I have 8 boxes of ornaments, one box of lights, one box of ribbon and beads, and one box of picks that all go on one tree.

First I spend a lot of time fluffing the tree. This is an important step that a lot of people with artificial trees skip. Open and spread and overlap the bracnches to get your tree's fullest effect.
Then I do lights. White lights around the trunk. Then, separately, lights around the branches.

Then I do bead and pearl garland draped around the tree.
Then ribbon cascading down the tree.
Then I tuck tulle into the tree near the base to cover where I tied the ribbon onto the base and give the trunk lights a fuzzy effect.
I spend about 2 hours on it before I even open a box of ornaments.

I do ball ornaments first. Those are my "inside" ornaments. I decorate from the inside out, placing balls closest to the trunk all through the tree.
Finally come my ornaments. It takes a lot of ornaments and I like to have a ball, an ornament, and something light and tiny on each branch. You can move and bend the branches of the tree to create spacing for ornaments. Don't be afraid to also bend the ornament hooks to make them longer or shorter to fit your needs.
Last I use picks to fill in any space between the ornaments and the balls that I can't get another ornament into.

It takes me about 8 hours to do my tree.

The kids have their own trees in their rooms for ornaments they make or the kiddie ornaments they want.

My tree matches my living room furniture and paint (so do all my decorations). It's ivory and gold, pink, and vintage aqua. No red. No bright green.

We get a Fraser fir every year and I try to find one with lots of spaces between the branches. White lights, crystal and pearl garlands, crystal icicles, and silver/blue/lavendar balls spaced throughout. Then I try to do groupings based on theme so when you look at each part of the tree up close, you see something unique and different. For example, one grouping would be my Disney princess gowns on hangers ornaments, another might be musical instruments, another might be birds. I love to collect ornaments in groups of at least threes. I like when you look at a little section, it's like looking at a unique scene.

We have a pre-lit tree with white lights. We have red and white ornaments (some have some silver on them too) and I use some white picks to fill space. We put ornaments deep into the tree for the depth. And before I had a pre-lit tree I made sure there were lights deep in the tree also, especially around the trunk. I do have some simple small red balls that are tied together in clusters; I read about that tip years ago.

I have some glittery red mesh ribbon that I looped and tied and I use these kind of "fluffy" ribbon pieces as filler. Just started that a couple of years ago. We haven't used any garland for many years and when I did I used pieces of thin wired garland.

We have a simple red topper and usually add some picks with sparkly red acrylic "water drop" looking things to the top around the topper. I got a new tree skirt a few years ago that is white with silver on it. We use some other white stuff under it to fluff it a bit and give dimension.

I have boxes of Hallmark ornaments that I used to collect in the basement but haven't used them in many many years. No kids, so we don't have the handmade ornaments that many people have and use. So our tree is totally what we want it to be - and my husband has actually gotten more into decorating with me over the years. He has a good eye for balance.

Sometimes I think about starting over and going with a blue theme, but the red and white looks really good with the rest of the house.