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Our Whimsical & Colorful Living Room Christmas Tree

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I know it’s mid-November, but our colorful Christmas tree is already standing proudly in our family room — bringing lots of joy, sparkle, and of course, rainbow colors to the space.

As a blogger, I always decorate for holidays earlier than the average person — it’s almost a requirement for us home decor bloggers.

But this year?  Even if I didn’t have a couple of Christmas-themed posts to write, I probably would’ve gone ahead and made my space all holly jolly this month, anyway.

I know that some people have strong opinions on when it’s appropriate to break out the garland and mistletoe.

But it’s 2020, and I firmly believe that this year you should do what brings you joy, whether that’s decorating now, later or not at all.

Today I’m thrilled to share our colorful Christmas tree with you as part of the My Home Style: Christmas Tree Hop that my friend Stephanie at Casa Watkins Living hosts annually.

The tour is five days long and features over 30 unique trees to inspire you!

Our Colorful and Eclectic Living Room Christmas tree

The Christmas tree I’m sharing with you today is in the heart of our home — our family room.

A look at our colorful family room, including our colorful rainbow living room Christmas tree!

Because of its location, it’s a tree that the entire family decorates.

In short, it’s never an overly themed or exotic tree.

Our living room is ready for Christmas, with garland and stockings decorating the mantel, and a colorful Christmas tree in the corner that the family helped decorate.

It’s the one that holds all our family treasures — from the ornaments we received the year my husband and I got married, to the handmade ones the kids craft each season at school.

And of course, it’s colorful and fun, because that’s what our home is all about year-round.

Related: more Christmas trees and home decor!

This post contains affiliate links — if you click a link below and make a purchase, I’ll receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting the brands that make my small business possible!

Here's what you need to decorate a fun and colorful living room Christmas tree: glittery garland, colorful ribbon, ornaments, and a gold tree collar.

That said, even though every member of my family pitches in to decorate the tree, there is a method to the madness. 

My Favorite Tips & Tricks for Decorating a Living Room Christmas Tree

After taking our tree down from the attic, I secure it in our tree collar (we bought this gold Christmas tree collar this year), and then I spend about an hour fluffing it. 

That’s just a fancy way of saying that I separate each branch and make the tree look like, well, a real tree — not something that’s been smashed in a box for 11 months.

Now I’ll walk you through exactly how we decorated our tree, and I’ll break down my own decorating process into easy tips and tricks that hopefully will help you when you’re decorating your own!

A look at our colorful Christmas decor in the living room: a mantel decorated with stockings and garland, ornament centerpieces, and a colorful living room Christmas tree.

Step 1: Choose the “base” of your Christmas tree decor.

First things first: Choose your “base,” or the things that will be in the “background” of your tree. I chose this glittery gold leaf garland for our tree this year:

A close-up look at some of the decor on our colorful living room Christmas tree: golf leaf garland, silver tinsel, and colorful ornaments.

Thick wired ribbon can serve as your first layer, too.

Personally, I like to choose one or the other — garland or ribbon — although some people like adding both to their tree. It’s really up to you!

Go with what looks beautiful to you.

Step 2: Add a layer of tree picks, bows, or … disco balls.

Okay, so maybe “disco balls” won’t make everyone’s list — but they sure rank at the top of mine!

When it comes to adding this next layer of decor to your tree, you can get creative. Maybe you love tree picks, maybe you want to add plaid bows.

Again, choose something you love and you can’t go wrong.

In my case, I found 6.5″ disco ball ornaments at my local Christmas Tree Shops store, and bought a handful. They turned out to be the perfect tree accent!

See how they’re tucked into our Christmas tree branches?

A close up look at some of the colorful ornaments on our living room Christmas tree: disco ball ornaments, garlands, globes, stars, and more.

Step 3: Time for the ornaments!

Welp, here’s where the “family decorating” thing sometimes gets tricky.

In years past, the kids and I have placed any ornaments we have on the tree in any spot we want. (Check out our family room tree from last year right here!)

And don’t get me wrong — it looked beautiful — but I wanted to try a new strategy.

First, the kids and I picked out all the ornaments we wanted to use, including some of the standard shatterproof balls we always add.

Second, I grouped all the ornaments we chose by color.

And finally, we added the ornaments to the tree in ROYGBIV order, leaving out the hues of the rainbow that we don’t have ornaments for.

A close up look at the ornaments on our living room Christmas tree! The gradient of colors mores up from pink to blue, green, and red.

The result? A tree full of meaningful ornaments, arranged in a way that makes Decorator Mom happy.

Our colorful living room Christmas tree, decorated with our favorite ornaments. The ornaments are arranged in a gradient rainbow from the top to the bottom of the tree.

In short, it’s a win all around!

Create Your Own Colorful Living Room Christmas Tree: Shop the Post

If you loved the garland, tree collar, and other items we chose for our Christmas tree this year, this is for you! I’ve pulled together all the sources for our Christmas tree decor, all in one spot.

For the items that are no longer available, I tried to choose similar substitutions for you.

Happy tree trimming!

How to Decorate a Colorful Living Room Christmas Tree

Learn how to decorate this whimsical, colorful Christmas tree with this easy tutorial.

Want all the details on how we decorated our whimsical, colorful Christmas tree? In this tutorial, you'll find supply links to all my favorite pieces and step-by-step instructions telling you exactly how we achieved this colorful Living Room Christmas tree.

Active Time 2 hours
Total Time 2 hours

Materials

Instructions

  1. Choose the “base” of your Christmas tree decor.
  2. Add a layer of tree picks, bows, or … disco balls.
  3. Time for the ornaments!

And don’t forget to check out all the other amazing trees that are part of this tour! Here’s the full list of participants:

Monday:

Casa Watkins Living // Up To Date Interiors // Taryn Whiteaker Designs // Cherished Bliss // Thou Swell // Cassie Bustamante

Tuesday:

The DIY Mommy // PMQ for Two // Jeweled Interiors // Kate Decorates // Banyan Bridges // Making Home Base

Wednesday:

Monica Wants It // House of Hipsters // Cuckoo 4 Design // Delineate Your Dwelling // Lolly Lane // Mango Manor

Thursday:

Two Twenty One // Lemon Thistle // Iris Nacole // Au Petite Salon // Setting for Four // Whispering Pines Homestead

Friday:

The Handmade Home // Our Fifth House // Tag & Tibby // Daly Digs // House Homemade // Love Your Abode

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Ashley Mills

Sunday 22nd of November 2020

Your rainbow tree is the BEST! And i love the little pickle! Too adorable.

Kate

Monday 23rd of November 2020

Thanks, Ashley! Funny enough, my daughter chose that because she is obsessed with pickles. She didn't initially know the story behind it. :)

Julia Fain

Friday 20th of November 2020

So fun to see the up close shots of your ornaments. They have so much personality!

Kate

Monday 23rd of November 2020

Thanks, Julia! We loved using all the ornaments we already owned. My kids especially enjoyed putting all their most-loved items on the tree.

Iris

Wednesday 18th of November 2020

I love your tree! So colorful, and tastefully done!

Kate

Thursday 19th of November 2020

Thank you so much, Iris!

cassie bustamante

Tuesday 17th of November 2020

totally obsessed with your fun tree- it's so you, too!

Kathryn Baugher

Tuesday 17th of November 2020

I love all of it!! The gold twig garland, disco balls, and color -coded ornament arrangement!

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