Shiny silver garland placed close to the trunk. Our inner garland goes on before the lights.

I use no ornaments. Just funky colored lights and a tree topper. (angel) The tree doesn't get lost under all the decorations and the lights are very colorful. One year I got as far as putting the lights on and it looked so darned pretty just like that, that I've kept it like that ever since.

Floral picks can make a huge difference and they come in a wide variety of colors so you can find something that will make your tree pop. You can place them deep with the tree or along the outer branches. I have Scotch thistle with silvery glitter that really catches the light. I bought mine at Michael's but you can find them in lots of places. If the stems aren't long enough you can wire them to the tree.

https://www.gandgwebstore.com/christmas-1/sprays/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAwf39BRCCARIsALXWETywhfJHm0wf4IskN-WVI77rYQ4vizut0zcYRnb6JZQ90TZs6TBmtp0aAvfnEALw_wcB

The fire-marshal prohibited lights on REAL trees at our Church. I covered them in gold and silver ice-cycles. The super thin foil ones. When the breeze of people walking by or furnace blower caught them they twinkled a million times.

White lights provide more contrast than the multicolored lights, IMO. That might help.

Maddie, do you mean put the garland inside the tree near the trunk? Can you show me a picture if you can find one online?

Skibby, I'd love to see it! I love funky!

Maire, I have a lot of floral picks but they hide the colorful ornaments and lights.

Sue, I had white lights for more years than I can remember and one day I decided I didn't want what everyone else had and went multi-color. I never went back. Using colorful glass ornaments, the multi-colors bounce off each other.

Here's a close-up of last year's tree, you can see the bouncing of colors. But in the daytime, it's dead.

This was the first year for my humongous white tree. At the time I didn't have near enough ornaments. DS and DH did a big no-no and I had to throw the tree out a few years later. Bad bad boys.

White really stands out in the daytime. I didn't have a garland at the time but it didn't need one.

White lights definitely with a green tree. I also use them on the flocked tree in our bedroom. Anything gold or silver or glittery. I don't use garland, I loop ribbon through the tree.

Several years ago I switched to very large ornaments most mercury glass and some of them are 12" wide, all silver, gold, rose gold and a few olives.

Some of them are only four or five inches wide. Either way I got rid of all red, kept to a color scheme, and increased the scale but have less ornaments and the tree is beautiful even when the lights are off and they're white.

This is the pretty, decorative tree, not the anything goes and all the kids ornaments over the years, tree.

I like to put large ornaments near the top of the tree too not just along the bottom.

I’ve done a tree before like Bumble just said and it makes all the difference with the larger, less ornaments and mostly silver or a mix of silver and gold. White lights. Sometimes I‘ll also group three ball ornaments together on one hook to give a larger appearance.

It’s more of a layered look but I‘ve also used white lights and then all silver or all gold ball ornaments toward the inner part of the tree. I’d put some of that color on outer branches too with the other ornaments. The tree would just glow.

Growing up we always put silver garland on first, then lights.

Tina, I've had both white and multi-color on a green tree. The one year old nice green tree I gave to DS last year so I could downsize to a smaller one had white lights. Trust me, multi-color is much more....colorful, especially with the colorful glass ornaments.

I'm not complaining about the lights though, but I forgot to say earlier that our LR is pretty big and that's why the tree doesn't pop at a distance in the daytime. Which is why I'm wondering if a beaded garland similar to what I have but with bigger beads would do the trick? Nothing white, it would be too stark against the green. I have some cute felt garland balls but I use those for the mantel.

As I said previously, I've never seen such beautiful lights on an artificial tree as the one on my 4'.5 one. Plus it has more lights than any faux tree I've seen.

Bumble, it sounds beautiful! Do you have a picture? I was told the larger ornaments go on the bottom first and graduate to the smaller ones at top. I've got some biggies too, and I love them. I might try that and see what happens.

I hopefully figured out what was lacking on the tree. The silver beads were too tiny and I hung them wrong, which was the traditional scallop with one strand.

I ordered two of these Kurt Adler silver beads, and they're larger which will make a difference from afar. :)

Take a look at this video, it's kind of painful to watch because the guy is so bad at it, but he showed me how to do it this way. It's simple.

A question for all of you below the video.

Painful, just painful.

I'm not going to post the video but there was a green tree full of colorful ornaments like how I do mine. They hung the beads last and I'm thinking about doing that because it really makes the tree stand out. If you do garland, when does it go on the tree?

The wonderful scent of a real tree.

I didn't watch the video. When I used to decorate my mother's tree, I would put the beads on after the lights, but before the ornaments. That allowed me to get the swags evenly sized and spaced on the outer edges of the branches. Then, I could place the ornaments.

I think LED lights don't have as much impact as incandescent lights. Also, most pre-lit trees don't have enough lights. I've always noticed that from outside, most of what you see from the street is the lights, not really the ornaments.

When my ornaments don't appear large enough I tie 3 that look good together in a bundle then hang them. I use multi-colored lights and multicolored ornaments. I fill up the tree branches from the inside all the way out with ornaments. I also use some special things like birds in nests to keep the interest going. Works for us :-) even from a distance.

People who enjoy tree decorating might enjoy this post from the Epbot blog

Orlando Festival of Trees

A lampshade on its head? LOL 😂

I appreciate all the styles. They’re all so pretty. I love my old fashioned ornament mish mosh. 🥰

Lights on first. Beads. Ornaments. Lastly the dangling clear icicles. A few of those ornaments are over 60 years old.

It all depends on what you consider "razzle dazzle". But to me, it seems to be "a lot"...it could be a lot of lights, a lot of tinsel garland, a lot of ornaments...some even all of the above. For others, it may be a theme be it a barbie doll tree for a girl or a football tree for a boy or a tree of certain color or colors. At work, our old medical center used to have a tree with syringes and bandaids and packets of aspirin and gauze bandages for garland. For others, it may be a complete mishmash that makes it look old fashioned and traditional with ornament collected over decades.