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<DIV>Hi all, I posted my ideas on how to decorate a Christmas tree on the
Krafters' mailing list. I figured that I would also post them here for
anyone who is interested in a few ideas. I figured that I'd post my
preffered way of decorating a Christmas tree as a blind person and
make the tree look presentable. First of all, you decorate a Christmas
tree the same way whether the tree is real or not. You do however, work with the
tree's branch make-up so that you don't have heavy ordaments falling onto the
floor. <BR><BR><BR>The Christmas tree: <BR>I preffer a real Nobalfur Christmas
tree that is six-foot-tall or taller because it's very stirty and has everything
that a Christmas tree should start out with before decorations. You may also get
any kind of fur tree, spruces, seater and a range of pine trees will also work
as Christmas trees. Others preffer a fake Christmas tree. The hight of the
Christmas tree depends on your prefference and how high your ceeling is. My
Christmas tree is a very small fake tree because I live in a small place where I
don't know where to stick a real tree without major tweeking with the tree
itself. I preffer a very tall Christmas tree with full branches all the way
around. I grew up with a six-foot-tall fake Christmas tree in my living room. I
am not an expert in how to put together a fake Christmas tree mainly because my
dad was the one who always put it up. I do know that it is color-coded. You
might have to lable the part where the color is so that you can code it
correctly. As for a real Christmas tree, I have always gotten it at a Christmas
tree farm. I know people who has gone up into our mountains and gotten their own
Christmas trees. I have not done that yet. Once you get the Christmas tree, you
can either put it in its stand at the farm, in the mountains or at home. I have
often put it in its stand after I got the Christmas tree at its final
destanation. Once the tree is in the stand, you can then put it where you want
it to go. A real tree does need to be watered like any house plant. Once it is
at its final location, then you may start the decorating! <BR><BR><BR>Lights:
<BR>I preffer L.E.D. Christmas lights because they are bright, don't get hot and
don't use up a lot of electricity. I also like to unplug the lights when I am
not home or when I am sleeping because I don't want my tree to catch on fire due
to a shortige. I usually wind the Christmas lights up the tree in a spiral. I
preffer multi-colored lights but a single color or two colors are also fine. On
a Nolbalfur tree, I find that the lights wind up the branches in their own rows
almost as though you were fitting a jixall puzzel together.
<BR><BR><BR>Christmas tree topper: <BR>I preffer a star but an angel is fine.
Some also use birds as well. You hook the topper to one of the light sockets. If
it doesn't light up, you just stick it on top of the Christmas tree.
<BR><BR><BR>Bolbs: <BR>You pick your bolb colors. I preffer many different
colors. Most people preffer one or two colors. The way to do it as a blind
person is to stick two bolbs that are the same color in a diaginal angle causing
them to be in different rows from each other. A hand's with or a hand's length
will do. You want to spread out the color all over the tree so two bolbs with
the same color too close to each other is not the way to go. You may alternate
each bolb color whether it's five or only two as you work yourself around the
Christmas tree. If you are totally blind and don't have an eyeball nearby that
works to help you, putting labels on each bolb of somekind will help you in a
big way. Make sure that there are no bare patches as you go. If you find a bare
patch, put some of your bolbs there in the same way as you did before. Make sure
as you go that the bolb isn't too heavy for the branch that you are trying to
stick it on. A good way to gage it is how it bends the branch. If it can't stay
on the branch or if it bends the branch a lot, then you might want to concider
moving that decoration to a nearby branch. <BR><BR><BR>Other ordaments: <BR>You
may pick a number of other ordaments for your Christmas tree. I am not picky
here. I like divercity. The same general rules apply with these decorations.
Again, make sure that the branch can hold each ordament. <BR>Real candycanes:
<BR>I preffer many different kinds of candycanes on my Christmas tree. Some
people don't put candycanes on their Christmas tree and others might only
preffer one or two different flavors of candycane. The same rules apply for real
candycanes as the rest of the ordaments. You might want to stick strings and
ribens to label them so that you don't accedently get too many candycanes of one
flavor too close to each other. <BR><BR><BR>The rest: <BR>I don't care whether
my Christmas tree has tensel, garland, strings of popcorn, a decoration under
the tree or without either of them. You get to play the most and still have your
Christmas tree excepted by your sited family and friends. Just make sure that
you wind up your garland and strings of popcorn like the lights that were done
on the Christmas tree earlier. Tensel gets to be hung like small peaces of
string. <BR><BR><BR>Oregon and Washington is where a lot of Christmas trees grow
and get sent from. We send different kinds of pine trees, fur trees, spruce
trees, seater trees and so on. We probably get our trees cheaper than other
parts of the U.S. because of the location of the Christmas trees. <BR><BR>I hope
that my ideas have helped you! Please feel free to pass around your ideas on how
you would decorate your Christmas tree. If you have any questions, please
feel free to ask me. <BR>Kendra Schaber <BR></DIV></BODY></HTML>