This year I had the task of buying ornaments for one of the trees at Fantasy of Trees. The sponsor representative decorated the tree with what I'd purchased.
I hadn't done this before and realized I didn't know how many ornaments to buy or how much ribbon for a garland. So off I went to the internet and got the expert advice.
The advice turns out to be this: For a tree under 9 feet, it is typical to have 10 to 20 ornaments per foot. So the six foot tree would have somewhere around 60 to 120 dangling ornaments and whatever things of interest you decide to decorate it with. That's a lot of stuff! These are trees on display in a festival, so it seems to me that more is better, and variety and novelty would be important.
Artificial trees are complicated now - or perhaps diverse. There are more dimensions to account for than just height. There's the circumference/shape - full, slim, pencil - from 48 inches down to 21 inches. And then there's style of the evergreen - plastic tips in various evergreens, to single evergreen type. And the number of them to make a full-looking tree. And finally, there is the finishing - sparkled, cashmere, and flocked. Cashmere is a light dusting of fake snow, and flocked as fully snow-covered.
A decorated tree is a visual composition, and wants to be created according to visual art rules. It wants to have garland or ribbon of some sort to create lines for the eye to follow to view the tree. There are horizontal patterns, vertical and diagonal. The old days of popcorn strings are replaced with fancy ribbons and faux fur. Tinsel is now considered optional and that likely is due to the garland taking dominance.
A tree wants a satisfying topper - sufficient to make the eye travel to the top and land there for a short time. There are far more approaches now than stars - tree toppers can be startling and fun. In addition, there should be focal points in the visual pattern field. These are larger items in the tree or perhaps signs with cute sayings. They give the eye something to stop at and enjoy.
Finally the bottom of the tree needs a skirt with substance so the skinny stand doesn't show. There are decorative tree collars that completely hide the bottom of the tree. These look something like elegant barrels beneath the tree.
My plaid theme meant that the Dollarama Store turned out to be my friend. There were ornaments in the shapes of stars and covered in plaid. There were Santas on sleighs wearing plaid, there were stockings by the fire in plaid, little winter boots, cute dogs, and elves. Even oven mitts and towels for under the tree. Everything under $4.00 and most things $2.00. Tree skirts edged in plaid.
This is a telling story about our disposable society and the industrial production of goods. There's an 80% chance that the artificial Christmas trees were made in China in one region with 500 Christmas goods factories.
There's a long history of children's jokes about Christmas trees:
How do Christmas trees get ready for a night out? They spruce up.
Where do young trees learn to become Christmas trees? Elementree school.
What was the Christmas tree’s favorite thing about Star Trek? The Captain’s log.
What did the Jedi say to the Christmas tree? May the forest be with you.
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