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Do you ever just plain get tired of dragging out the same old Christmas tree decorations year after year? Sure you want to keep and display family treasures but why not put up two trees? That's what I do each year. One pencil type small tree in the dining room is full of old Santa Claus decorations and colored lights for the kids and grandkids which never changes (most kids hate changes, after all it's their tree too and they want to see the same thing each year) but the large one in the living room is just for me. That's the fun part and everyone is happy.

The secret of being able to change the color theme without spending a lot of money is to start with a basic supply of ornaments that you will use year after year. I always use my white, silver and crystal (or lookalike acrylic) ornaments, pearl garland and lots of small white lights. This is the building block I use for all future trees. It makes changing the colors a real budget saver.

After several years of using mauve and pink decorations I decided to have a blue and white theme this year so I scoured the stores for after Christmas sales for blue ornaments and a couple strings of blue lights to add to the white ones. By adding only the blue ornaments and some blue lights to the white, crystal and silver I have a completely different looking tree for very little money.

You can keep the same colors for a few years, which I plan to do, switch back to the original decorations, or change it again. The secret is to buy after Christmas!

When I take down the tree I place all the pink and mauve decorations in a labeled box, or all the blue or red in separate plastic boxes. Keeping the ornaments separated by color makes it very easy to just pull out the boxes you want.

This Christmas I've changed my decorations to a copper colored theme. I bought some really elegant copper colored garlands, flowers and ornaments. I changed some of the silver ornaments to gold to compliment the copper, but hey, that's just one more option to explore and I can always use the basic gold to add to a new theme. The possibilities are endless.

If you're like me, you will be anxious to decorate your tree next December. Although I decided that I wouldn't make any more color changes, this year I saw some beautiful purple and lavender ornaments. Hmmmm, maybe just one more change?

Merry Christmas and happy decorating!

Learn more about this author, Barbara Claire Schaefer.
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