A Country Style Red and White Christmas Tree 2020

The words ‘red’ and ‘Christmas’ go together like ‘Santa’ and ‘elves’ but using red as an accessory can be so difficult. And using red at Christmas seems to have many of us thinking we have to be totally over the top with it. So, in this post, I’d like to share with you our red and white farmhouse Christmas tree for 2020. It is created using only lights, ribbon and baubles but looks luxe. The addition of ribbon and heritage family pieces gives it the vintage farmhouse feel I love. Read on to find out how to create your own stylish red and white Christmas tree.

Why is Red so Difficult to Decorate With

Red is vibrant and bold. It stimulates the senses and is often associated with passion. For those reasons, many people don’t use red in their homes. Too much of the colour can be ‘in your face’. Which can cause problems when Christmas comes around because everything associated with Christmas is red! I think red has been given a bit of a bad rap over the past few years, though, with bloggers turning to neutrals or other colours. But red is such a country style colour. I want to decorate with it this year.

How I Decorated Our Red and White Christmas Tree

So how do you use red on your Christmas tree without going all out? Use it as in accent, of course. Just like you would a cushion, little touches add the greatest impact. I could have covered the entire tree with red baubles. (Believe me, I thought about it.) But I wanted pops of red in the rest of the room to tie the scheme together. So I chose to use red baubles I already owned, tempering them with a lot of white.

I was careful too, about the shade of red I chose. Bright scarlet is lovely in small doses, so I used that but mixed it with a darker shade of red in the baubles.

To create this red and white Christmas tree I gathered the following supplies:

• a Christmas tree. Mine is six feet tall
• white and clear glass decorations
• red baubles
• tartan ribbon in a soft, red country pattern. I used 10 metres but I could have done with about 3 metres more.
• A tartan rug for the tree skirt
• lots of fairy lights!
• a vintage travel rug and treetopper

Decorating the Red and White Christmas Tree

I began decorating my red and white Christmas tree by putting the lights on. It’s best to add the ‘big’ and background items like lights first so that they enhance the decorations, not cover them. For my lights, I used a strand of 500 fairy lights. It’s important to make sure the wire on the lights matches the colour of the tree as closely as you can so that they aren’t visible. My lights have black wire so they are fairly well hidden on my tree.

There are many ways to string fairy lights and I’ve tried most of them but I prefer to wind them along the branches, working from bottom to top. It takes ages but it is easy and gives depth to the lighting. The tree appears fuller. A quicker way is to string them vertically. Imagine the tree in triangle sections and wind them down and out. After I strung the lights I turned them on and gave areas that were a bit bald a tweak.

The next step was to add the tartan ribbon. I love this pattern. While still a scarlet red, the ribbon has enough green to tone the red down. It is also wired in gold so it will remain in place now it’s on the tree. I got this ribbon from our local $2 shop. It’s the only thing I bought for decorating. If you are going to purchase ribbon for your tree, ensure you get wired ribbon. Normal ribbon will flop on your tree.

The key to putting ribbon on the Christmas tree so it looks good is to start at the top and let it loop naturally down. When you see a spot that looks like you should tuck, push the ribbon right into the centre of the tree making little bumps. I could have used more ribbon but this was all I had an I’m happy with the look.

What I Did Next

After putting the ribbon on the tree, I added the white snowflake decorations. I also hung glass family baubles and big red baubles. I staggered the decorations around the tree in a zigag pattern so it looked balanced. Then I put my vintage angel tree topper (this was a gift for MY first Christmas) on top of the tree. My grandmother’s tartan travel rug covered the stand, providing a further vintage touch.

Now, I stood back to look at my tree. This is an important step to see where you need to add or take away. At this point I the tree looked too bare for my liking and didn’t have enough contrast in colour, so I added strands of timber star lights and some dark red baubles. This completed the look for me.

What do you think of our country style Christmas tree? If you love it, don’t forget to add it to your Pinterest boards for inspiration!