105 Creative Christmas Trees Celebrate Every Kind of Style
Houzz readers dress their Christmas trees with butterflies, feathers, family photos, Matisse cut-outs and light
Each Christmas tree tells a story. In these photos uploaded by Houzz users, you’ll see that no two stories are alike — and no two creators are either, from an artist who decorates in the style of a famous artist every year to a couple who share their joint love of video games with a game-themed tree. While some people add to their tree’s story every year, others reinvent it. Read on to see some of our favorites, and be sure to see all the trees Houzzers uploaded.
Every year, artist welcho decorates the Christmas tree in a different artistic theme. Last year was Jackson Pollack — including plenty of wild string. Can you guess this year’s theme? “I did the Matisse cut-out tree with some added pompoms and feathers,” welcho says.
For Sistahatty, the beauty of the Christmas tree is not so much about the decorations as about the natural qualities. “The smell of the fresh tree makes me smile each time I come home,” Sistahatty says.
In Mexico, Alison Pickering’s tree is actually a tower of green painted seedpods. Chile lights, butterflies and ribbons refer to local wildlife and cultural traditions.
Alexis Ferrin’s tree features multicolored lights, white lights and family ornaments, including ornaments with pictures of family members. “This tree is always traditional in these ornaments so we can remember our loved ones that are no longer with us,” Ferrin says.
With Marilyn Monroe and a turquoise wall nearby, tommorrow111’s modern white tree looks right at home in this groovy pool house.
In Uruguay, valesga has a wall-mounted Christmas tree made of lights and branches.
Vintage handmade beaded ornaments and glass ornaments decorate this 11-foot-tall tree in Chicago, and a life-size Santa Claus and reindeer with white fur watch over it.
“We love our funky, exotic Asia-India-inspired tree all covered in unusual ornaments, flowers and feathers,” Marie Vlasic says.
Cary Simpson’s 600-square-foot casita is too small for a cut tree, so it’s sitting on the porch in an antique goat cart instead. Nonbreakable ornaments from travels decorate the tree.
The evening glow of ally123’s tree bathes the living room in warm, inviting light.
“Our tree and holiday decorating are deeply rooted in family traditions and traditions we are building as a couple,” Amanda Lee says. “We want our family and friends to enjoy the season at our home as much as we do. From the ribbon candy to the garland, there is always something that reminds everyone of a family tradition.”
From amylcarey: “This is my dog-proof ode to the beach.”
The Christmas tree at ann3706’s house is a display for her husband’s enormous Star Trek ornament collection, including this one of Mr. Spock and McCoy.
At anniebird’s house in Minnesota, it’s warm inside and out of the snow, next to the tree and stocking-lined fireplace.
Atlla keeps the tree decorations pretty traditional, but prefers a mint, teal, gold and cream-color theme over the typical red and green.
Glass ornaments collected over 20 years decorate beccaxstitcher’s tree. The knight is a new addition that watches over the tree and holds the family’s stockings.
Ornaments, candy canes and white lights decorate beverlynn’s tall Christmas tree in her home’s den, one of two trees in the house.
While the tree is often a centerpiece, burful shows that it can also be tucked into an empty corner for an unexpected Christmas accent.
Caileyjordanhouse chose a cream-and-gold theme for this bright Christmas tree.
Decorating during a remodel can be a challenge. Carolyn, who is in the second year of a home remodel, was excited to be able to put up a tree this year, something she wasn’t able to do last year.
Like many Houzzers, Texan Christine Zimmerman likes to sit and enjoy her Christmas tree while a fire is going.
Christine likes to stick with tradition when it comes to decorating her tree. Each family member, including her five grandchildren and exchange students she has hosted in the past, has a dedicated ornament on the tree. “Our tree is very personal and filled with precious memories that tell a story,” she says.
This scene is where cmslas likes to spend the cold holiday nights. We can see why.
A red-and-white theme is used for collgirl999’s corner tree. “We also make our antique ornaments front and center on the tree,” she says.
“I have been collecting Scottie dog pieces since 1985 and have approximately 1,500 Scottie items, including hundreds of Scottie ornaments,” Constance Blevins says. A red tree shows off her impressive collection, which also includes vintage elf pieces.
Cynthia Tucker’s towering tree displays ornaments she has been collecting her whole life, including those inherited from her grandparents, purchased on trips or found at flea markets and antiques fairs. “I have never counted them, but I’m guessing it tops 900,” she says. “I really enjoy decorating our tree and telling stories about where I got each one.”
Sitting on the terrace, this Christmas tree uploaded by D40Studio can be enjoyed from inside and out.
Silver and gold make for a timeless, elegant color combination for the season, and dan1er’s glimmering tree is proof.
Darth Vader decorates the tree of daniritter02, who is having the first Christmas after an extended renovation and a brother’s passing. This ornament belonged to his brother — “He was always a Dark Side guy,” daniritter02 says.
Mandy Reiszner decided this year that decorating for Christmas didn’t mean she had to start from scratch — she kept white pumpkins and a string of acorns from fall. She continued the all-white theme to the tree, with streamers, ball ornaments and lights contributing to the monochromatic look. “I love its simplicity and have really been pleased with how the decor turned out,” she says.
Dawn Y’s 13-foot-tall Christmas tree is decorated to reflect the woodland garden and natural prairie she lives in. It features ornaments in the shapes of birds and nests, and she has even added birdhouses, dried flowers and pheasant feathers.
Debbie Monelo’s tree goes up the day after Thanksgiving. She calls it her memory tree, as it features ornaments from her childhood and mercury glass ornaments. It’s a “very magical moment when it is fully decorated,” she says.
White lights and red bows tie together a Christmas tree that features ornaments collected over more than 35 years. “Every ornament has meaning,” Debbie says. The eclectic mix includes homemade ornaments, ornaments from travels, ornaments for dogs she’s had over the years and gift ornaments from friends.
Here is one of the four Christmas trees delaney2 puts up at home for the holidays. “Can you tell I love Christmas? Everybody wants to celebrate at our house,” delaney2 says.
While it’s a challenge to decorate for the holidays during a remodel, it’s also hard when your home is for sale, as was the case for drbevdc. But with young kids still at home, the family decided to keep with tradition and put up a tree — one over 16 feet tall. “I hope the kids grow up with fond memories of the giant Christmas trees,” drbevdc says.
This tree in dushanidye’s house has a decorating tradition that goes back 16 years. “We add one photo ornament each year,” dushanidye says. In 2000, the first year, it was a wedding photo.
To keep things simple this year, Edy BF decorated this Christmas tree with only a fraction of the ornaments normally used.
The petite tabletop tree in elizabethphelps’ home gets a helping hand from lots of twinkle lights and hanging stars.
This holiday tree uploaded by Fine Home Living is clean and classic, with white lights and a few oversized silver and gold ornament balls.
It can be tempting to go over the top with the tree, but gabehamrick proves that sometimes it pays to keep it simple. “We went pretty simple with our tree this year, and it turned out to be my favorite in a long time,” gabehamrick says.
This tree uploaded by hollisp features more of a natural, autumn coloring, with rusts and browns complementing sparkly silvers and golds. Natural elements like pine cones and feathers play up the earthy colors, and a decorative top hat is a fun alternative tree topper.
Every year in honeybeeanne’s family, decorating the Christmas tree is a chance to remember fun vacations they all took together. “We have a tradition of collecting a new ornament for each family member from every vacation trip,” honeybeeanne says. “Needless to say, we have too many ornaments, but manage to fit most on the tree.”
Ina Young has given up on big trees and excessive decorations, in favor of something simpler. “This year, this is our only tree,” she says. “It sits out on our lanai, on the head of our tiki goddess, Melissa.” It doesn’t appear as if Melissa is too happy about it.
Indybullterrier is just beginning the tradition of collecting holiday ornaments, as this is only the second year of living in a house that can accommodate a full-size tree. “We’re working on collecting more personalized ornaments, because we have so much more tree to cover,” indybullterrier says.
Ornaments decorate an evergreen garland as well as a stately Christmas tree in Jaime Williams’ house. “Our tree is covered in tons of lights and tons of sentimental ornaments — with no real rhyme or reason to their arrangement,” she says.
While an ornament collection can make for a memorable tree, sometimes it’s the decorations near the tree that help make it stand out. Here, a collection of nutcrackers forms a decorative ring around the base of jalarse’s Christmas tree.
“For me, Christmas without red is not Christmas,” Maria Rodriguez in Guatemala says. “My Christmas tree this year has red cardinals.”
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In addition to hanging classic white and gold tree ornaments, Jason Ng also temporarily converted some of his dogs’ toys into tree hangings. Look for squirrels, raccoons and bears.
While an artificial tree can make holiday decorating easier, jcampbell711 took it one step further with this tree wall panel from Ikea. “I pinned ornaments to it and now have a tree that unrolls in 20 seconds,” jcampbell711 says.
This year, in addition to setting up a main tree for her family, jenbenwaz also set up a smaller artificial tree in one of her son’s bedrooms (he’s shown here with his tree). Ornaments collected and made by her children over the years decorate both the trees.
“This year I went with white and gold. I love putting the unexpected, like the reindeers, on the tree to make it fun,” kathygaines says.
JinIllinois set up three Christmas trees this year. Here’s the one in the living room.
Laura Leszczynski and her family celebrated the first Christmas in their new home with a 13-foot-tall tree. “It’s been fun having the tall ceilings, so the kids picked out the tallest tree on the farm,” she says.
A lightly flocked tree with silver ornaments, white feathers, doves and butterflies decorates Jo Baumgartner’s house.
Many Houzzers going out of town for the holidays opted for artificial trees to cut down on maintenance. Lynn Martin Dotterer took this idea one step further with a ladder tree. “This ‘tree’ makes for easy storage and is definitely a conversation piece. The ornaments hang on red and white kitchen twine, and each has special meaning to our family,” she says.
A dream inspired jodyinga to begin collecting mermaid ornaments. Twenty years later, she has enough ornaments to decorate a whole tree.
Also opting for an alternative take on the Christmas tree, John van der Pers made his family’s tree from old wood shelves.
To honor the first Christmas after leigh7540’s mother’s passing, the Houzzer put up a gold and white tree, the mother’s favorite, instead of a fresh tree and colorful ornaments. “I put up her favorite skinny gold tree in her loving memory,” leigh7540 says.
Julie Runyon took an alternative approach with a living Christmas tree — a potted Norfolk Island pine — in her Reno, Nevada, condo.
The alternative Christmas colors continue with julknox’s decorated tree. “I love the colors of teal, green and copper together for my tree,” the Houzzer says.
Vivien the cat enjoys the tiny tree in Kathryn Kucharski’s Manhattan apartment. “She and my other cat, Miu Miu, enjoy looking at the lights and sleeping under the tree each year,” this Houzzer says.
“I too like to use a different color scheme each year,” kdsmart says. “With two trees in my living room, I decorate one with just colorful baubles and the other with coordinating colors and my hundreds of keepsake ornaments.”
Ornaments from travels and friends decorate khuth29’s Christmas tree. The decorations are especially sentimental because they survived a house fire nearly five years ago.
Rachieleigh kept the tree decorating simple this year with a short, stout tree that is minimally decorated. Instead of a tree skirt, she used an old Mexican blanket. “I plan to always use it in place of a tree skirt,” she says.
Every year, Kim Gasson takes her grandchildren out on Black Friday to cut down their own Christmas trees. Some years the trees look great, she says, and some years they could be better. “We don’t remember the trees, but we remember the fun day,” she says. Jora, the border collie shown here, also enjoys the trees.
Ornaments collected over 30 years decorate kimann @modlodgeluv’s 12-foot-tall tree.
“This area is open to the foyer and sits adjacent to the living room and kitchen, so we always get glimpses of the tree as we are moving about the house,” says ladyearlgrey, who decorates her tree with ornaments from travels, along with homemade ones and old favorites.
Lbeck66 opts for a tabletop Christmas tree. “Because we travel to be with family during the holidays, a tabletop tree is more practical. It takes up less space, but it is just as beautiful.”
In this entry uploaded by Liz Williams Design, a 12-foot-tall noble fir tree welcomes visitors. “We enjoy the fresh tree smell too,” Liz Williams says.
In this photo uploaded by loster, a simple pairing of gold orbs and stars and red orbs is as classic as it gets with Christmas tree decorating.
After several years of silk trees, lthomas decided to return to a real tree this year. “We wanted to leave room for a train to run around the bottom of the tree, so we purchased a half barrel and put a 6-foot tree on top,” lthomas says.
Manuel Hesse in Germany shared this photo of his decorated Christmas tree. “As this year is only the third one in our new house, we are just about to start traditions,” the Houzzer says. Those traditions include always having a tree that’s at least 10 feet tall.
Instead of the traditional red and green — or even gold and silver — decorations, the tree in this photo shared by Marie Hebson’s interiorsByDesign features brilliant purple ones.
This stunning view comes from Deception Pass on Fidalgo Island, Washington. “We especially love having our flocked tree when there’s snow outside, which doesn’t happen every year,” Mary McEathron says.
Maryjane Aitchison always sets up the Christmas tree in the family room and uses the same decorations every year — a mixture of old and new ornaments of various themes. “It’s funny to me how different the tree looks each year, even though the same ornaments are put on every Christmas,” she says.
Two small matching trees flank Melanie Poland’s living room hearth, two of several trees in the house. Ornaments from the ’50s and ’60s decorate the trees for a classic, colorful effect that doesn’t require much furniture rearranging.
Melanieeden reminds us with this photo that no matter how old we are, the decorated Christmas tree is oh so alluring.
Sometimes it’s fun to try something a little different with decorating, as demonstrated in this photo uploaded by Mike Cole. The ornaments appear to hover around the tree on its illuminated branches.
Ornaments collected over the years, including bronze and silver berries, leaves and flowers, decorate mitzipages’ stunning tree.
Humans aren’t the only members of the household who enjoy a decked-out Christmas tree, as this photo uploaded by N S shows.
A palm-style Christmas tree allows namastemauigirl to celebrate the holidays in Hawaiian style.
Instead of the typical fir or pine tree, nana17 decorated another type of conifer. “It is an araucaria plant, decorated with old chandelier crystals and random baubles we had on hand.”
Two hundred ornaments, some over 60 years old, decorate nanaevie’s tree. “It goes up just after Thanksgiving, and I love the sparkle and cheer it adds to the house,” the Houzzer says.
Moving to Florida inspired nmlyons to change up the Christmas decorations. This year, they’re white, turquoise and aqua.
This year pammyhanny started a new Christmas tradition that allows her to see her grandchildren all year long. “I had my husband create a photo tree where we can display my favorite photos of them throughout the year,” she says.
Patti Toering has had the same silver tabletop tree for 13 years, ever since she moved into her own apartment after college. “It worked beautifully in my first apartment, my first condo and in the first apartment my husband and I lived in together. Now that we’ve moved into our first house together, we decided to keep the tiny tinsel tradition going,” she says.
Peggy Duerr’s tree is a collection of ornaments old and new. “I especially love the crystal chandelier prisms that my mother-in-law used on her trees as icicles,” Duerr says.
Perrettak keeps a modernist aluminum Christmas tree under the stairs, next to a gallery wall of Nelson clocks.
“Cleo loves Christmas,” monaellen says of the black cat seen here. Cleo even likes to sleep in the tree. “One Christmas a guest got too close, and a little paw reached out of the tree and smacked her very gently in the face.”
Phyllissnow is celebrating her first Christmas in her newly purchased hundred-year-old home with a new tradition. Instead of one tree, she’s putting up two: one decorated with ornaments that have been collected over the years, and this one in the living room decorated in gold, silver and copper.
This photo uploaded by Pink Fortitude is a pleasant reminder of when the designer was first dating her now husband. At the time, he didn’t have a Christmas tree, and his son was worried that Santa wouldn’t be able to find his dad without a tree. “We went to Rite Aid and picked out the only tree left on the shelf. I brought over some of the decorations from my tree and helped him decorate. Since then, that tree has held a special place in our hearts,” the Houzzer says.
One look at rbsilva’s Christmas tree and you can see that each ornament is significant. “King Kong sits below a dove, flanked by Lady and the Tramp, Hallmark Barbies, ornaments from New Orleans, poodles, shih tzus and dachshunds,” rbsilva says.
“When we go to visit family for the holidays, we put up a fake tree so we don’t need to worry about watering,” Reneelmck says. “I figured if we’re going to do a fake tree, we should make it kitschy and buy an obvious one.”
From Rachel Grey: “We own a historic home, which still needs a ton of work. But decorating our tree and seeing it lit through the windows always makes the rooms feel that much nicer.”
Skylr117 combined the traditions of Christmas and Hanukkah when decorating the tree this year. “I wanted a more farmhouse rustic look, and decorated with dreidels, stars of David and blue, gold and silver with the occasional splash of red,” the Houzzer says.
This tree uploaded by sswarner reveals a passion for video games, from the Nintendo-themed ornaments made out of meltable crafting beads to the Super Mario star topper. “Each year we add new ornaments to represent our favorite games of the year. We love that the tree feels so festive and reflective of our shared interest in gaming,” sswarner says.
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The tree uploaded by Steven Richards and Associates was inspired by the Treasure House on Captain Kangaroo. “That tree had some of everything, and to a then 5-year-old, it was the most beautiful tree I had ever seen,” the Houzzer writes.
Having moved to Spain with her husband 18 months ago, suedavies2000 decided to forgo the traditional Christmas tree this year. Instead, her husband made this tree from driftwood he collected on the beach. “We love it,” she says.
This year suneiah had a helper while decorating the Christmas tree. “He did a pretty good job, all things considered,” suneiah says.
Tanya Remy’s robust tree is bursting with ornaments. Her favorites are the ones made by her son.
Dalmatians Cash and Harlow approve of Terri Reid’s Christmas tree this year.
Victoriak326 adds something new to the Christmas tree each year. “This year I added some snow sprigs to my artificial tree to give it that cold, snowy look,” she says.
From wakespeak: “In addition to our ‘real’ Christmas tree, we have a Christmas card tree.”
Wanda Hammond grouped three narrow Christmas trees to create this festive vignette. “It is my first Christmas without my husband of 44 years, who passed away this summer. I still like to enjoy the lights and some of my favorite ornaments,” she says.
Wildrosa’s love for Christmas decorating even influenced decisions for her home renovation in Oregon. She insisted on a 12-foot-tall ceiling in their addition to accommodate a tall tree.
Cats will be cats, even at Christmastime, as Chris Marion’s pair shows.
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