It’s that time of year again””my favourite annual blog feature””Salisbury’s countdown of the top Christmas tree decorating trends for 2020! Like many of my friends here in Sherwood Park, after making it through this rollercoaster ride of a year, I’m going all out with the Christmas decor, and nothing’s gonna stop me. Clark Griswold’s going to look like a straight-up rookie once my lights are up.  

The tree is usually the first thing to go up in my house, and while there are definitely some sentimental ornaments I like to bring out each year, I really get a kick out of designing new themes and colour schemes. Something about a well-curated, carefully decorated tree brings that extra bit of holiday magic that, these days, feels like a tonic for the soul.  

The Top 7 Trends for Christmas Tree Decorations

We did a deep dive into the rabbit hole of holiday design blogs and Instagram feeds in search of the most spectacular new Christmas decor ideas. It was hard to narrow down the favourites, but we managed to settle on the seven best Christmas tree themes we think you’ll really enjoy. Here are this year’s winners!

7) Christmas in Wonderland

The classic Lewis Carrol series, starring Alice and her many mysterious encounters in Wonderland, features some of the most iconic and recognizable imagery in modern literature. The colourful, whimsical characters and scenes have been recreated by countless movie directors, but you can easily pull off your own adaptation in the form of an evergreen tree!

Pick up some purple Christmas balls and paint lavender stripes on them to mimic the pattern of the Cheshire Cat. String some hooks through a deck of playing cards and scatter them throughout. Top it off with a floppy Mad Hatter top hat instead of the traditional star, and you’ve got the basics nailed down! From there, you can add in all sorts of other themed decorations, such as:

• Black-and-white harlequin print ribbon
• Chess pieces
• White and red roses
• Little bottles and bags of cookies with notes that say “Drink Me” or “Eat Me”  
• White rabbits
• Clocks
• Teacups

If you enjoy painting your own decorations, see if you can replicate any other iconic characters in Christmas ball form, like Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, the smoking caterpillar, or the walrus and the carpenter!

6) All Gold Everything

While red and green are generally considered the OG Christmas colours, metallics are definitely up there too. While silver has long been thought of as the cooler, more modern metallic shade, trending styles have totally shifted, and gold is more popular than ever!  

Personally, I love how warm and inviting gold is, and I love how just a little bit in the right places can create an opulent, elegant-feeling atmosphere. For a bit more depth of colour and variety, stick to gold ornaments with a few cream-coloured accents mixed in, and string up some warm white lights instead of cool white. Add a warm white poinsettia for a finishing touch.

5) LED Fibre Optic Trees

If you’re going to go the artificial tree route, you may as well get the coolest artificial tree of all time. Light-up fibre optic trees have thick bundles of thread-like fibres that glow on their ends, creating little pin-sized lights, densely packed together to cover the surface of the tree with a spacey, futuristic glow. It saves you the trouble of having to cover it in string lights, and most of them are programmed with different colour and pattern settings so you can switch things up.  

4) Pineapple Tree

If winter has you dreaming of a much-needed tropical vacation, you’ll get a kick out of this adorable pineapple tree. You can start with a real tree that has more yellow-green, warm-toned needles (as opposed to cooler, blue-green needles) and cover it with yellow and gold tinsel, or you can just buy a full-on yellow or metallic gold artificial tree. Use garland in either green, black, or brown, and create a diagonal criss-cross pattern to mimic the look of pineapple skin. String up some yellow lights and ornaments, and finish off your tree with a handmade tree topper made with green construction paper to look like pineapple leaves.  

3) Put a Bird On It  

I don’t know who wrote “12 Days of Christmas,” but if my true love gave me seven swans a-swimming, six geese a-laying, four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree, honestly, I’d have some concerns. Like, I’ll gladly keep the pear tree, but 23 birds is a bit much.  

That being said, covering your tree in feathery bird ornaments is a very cool design aesthetic that I’m entirely on board with. You could go all out and replicate the 23 birds from the song, topping your tree off with a single, star-spangled partridge, or you can just look for cute decorations featuring some of our most beautiful winter birds in Alberta. This year, cardinals are especially popular, and their red feathers are a perfect fit for the season.

2) Retro Pastels

If there’s anything I love about “˜50s decor, it’s the candy-coloured pastels that adorned every car, home appliance, and poodle skirt. Bring on the malt shoppe vibes with a sugary sweet tree covered in baby pink, powder blue, mint green, lilac purple, and banana yellow! Then, hit up some local antique shops to see if you can find any adorable vintage ornaments to add an extra dose of nostalgia.

1) Marvel Comics Tree

Don’t act surprised that I saved the nerdiest tree for the number one spot. Not only is this Marvel comics tree the pinnacle of awesomeness””but it also makes a fantastic family activity to enjoy with the kids. Cut out a bunch of cardboard circles, and print out some cartoon comic book character faces like Spiderman, the Incredible Hulk, and all your favourite X-Men for your younger kids to paste on themselves. For older kids, grab them some paints and get them to decorate their ornaments by hand. Don’t forget to top the tree with Captain America’s signature star shield!

For all your other holiday decor needs, swing by Salisbury to see our incredible new collection of ornaments and lights! To make your decor design process as simple as possible, we’ve organized our collection into a series of different Christmas decorating themes, like “Old Fashioned Christmas,” “Pheasant Ridge,” “Country Roads,” and “Nature’s Frost.” Stick to one theme, and everything will match perfectly for that picturesque magazine look that will draw endless oohs and aahs!