Pure gold

I'm not exactly sure why, but I don't like having too many colors in my Christmas tree. For the lights, I only use the yellow ones—not red, green or blue, and no way to multi-colored lights. For the ornaments, I also tend to stick to the more traditional colors (no green, because I only like forest green and that's already the color of the tree): red, white, gold, silver and clear. Part of the reason is practicality—if I follow the "in" color every year, then that means I'll have to buy new ornaments every year (we-ell, I do, but it's more to augment and add on to my existing ones, not to change the entire stock!). But I suspect that the other part of the reason is that I'm just not confident in my ability to mix so many colors. So the most colors I've ever used is three.

This year, I went all gold. But different sizes—the smallest is an inch in diameter (and that's not counting the garland, which is made up of 1/4" beads)—and different textures. I love textures. I've got matte, glittery, and shiny (there's one that looks like a mini mirror ball!) ornaments. Then I stuck in gold satin flowers on those branches that look bare because they're a little to far from each other.

Textures. I just love how they reflect the lights oh so differently.