Decorate a Christmas tree: tips, ideas and a little history

How to decorate your tree

After you tap Start decorating, you see a bare tree with a star on top and a string of lights. Under it is a row of ornaments: five glass baubles in different colours, a star, a bell, a candy cane, a gift, a bow, a stocking, a snowflake and a cookie. Pick one and tap the tree to hang it. Tap again to hang another. If you want to nudge an ornament, press it and drag it to a better spot.

Below the ornaments you can change the tree itself. There are four shapes (classic, snowy, a slim Nordic fir and a pink tree), four backgrounds, a choice of topper, and switches for snow and lights. Changing the tree never moves your ornaments, so feel free to experiment. When you like it, add your name and a short message and tap Finish my tree.

• Pick an ornament, then tap the tree to hang it.
• Drag an ornament to move it, or use the eraser to remove one.
• Undo steps back one change; Clear takes every ornament off.
• Surprise me adds a handful of ornaments if you want a quick start.
• Finish to save the image or share a link.

Decorating tips that make a tree look full

Decorators often follow a simple order: lights first, then the big pieces, then the small ones. Do the same here. Start with a few large items spread around the tree in a loose zigzag, so no side looks empty. Then fill the gaps with smaller baubles and stars. A tree looks most natural when ornaments are spread evenly rather than lined up in rows.

Colour matters more than quantity. Two or three colours, such as red and gold or blue and silver, give a calm, elegant look, while a mix of everything feels cheerful and homemade. Put a few gifts at the bottom of the tree to ground the picture, and leave a little space around the topper so it stands out. If you switch off the lights, the ornaments carry more of the colour; with the lights on, slightly fewer ornaments often look better.

A short history of the Christmas tree

Bringing evergreen branches indoors in winter is a very old habit, a sign that life and green things would return in spring. Decorated Christmas trees as we know them grew up in German-speaking towns in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, where families hung apples, nuts, paper roses and small biscuits on fir trees. Candles came later, and they were lit only briefly because of the fire risk.

The custom spread across Europe in the nineteenth century, helped by a widely printed picture of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert's family gathered around a decorated tree. Glass baubles from the German town of Lauscha became popular around the same time, and electric tree lights appeared at the end of that century. Today trees are decorated all over the world, from tiny tabletop trees in apartments to giant trees in city squares.

Ideas for using your digital tree

A decorated tree makes a friendly seasonal greeting. Send the link to grandparents, cousins or friends who live far away, with a short message such as a wish for the holidays. They will see your tree with its lights twinkling and can decorate one to send back.

You can also turn it into a small game. Ask everyone in a family chat to decorate a tree with the same colours and compare the results, or give yourselves a theme such as only stars, only cookies or the most snowy tree. Teachers can use it as a calm end-of-term activity, and the saved image works nicely as a phone wallpaper, a social media post or a picture to print and add to a card.

Privacy and sharing

Your tree, name and message are stored only inside the link you share and, while you are decorating, in your own browser. Nothing you type is sent to our server. That also means anyone who has the link can see the tree, so keep personal details such as addresses out of your message and share the link only with people you want to see it.