Hospitality means more than entertaining guests to us. Hospitality is creating a welcoming, warm and joyful space where guests can relax and escape (even for the day). The Carolina Inn at Christmas is the perfect example of hospitality to me.

Decorating a Christmas tree can be an intimidating task, trust me, I am part of a team that decorates The Carolina Inn every year and we conquer at least five. When you decorate five trees, I find it necessary to have a distinct design for each tree. Whether you are doing a specific theme, color scheme or a homemade tree — having a plan in place really helps the tree shine even brighter!

Here are some helpful tips that have made this task more manageable. Once you get the tree up with the lights on:

  • Add garland or mesh, this will help you fill space and give you a base to work with. We prefer to weave our mesh in and out of the tree to help give it dimension.
  • Fill your tree with larger items- Sleighs, Elves, Large Ornaments or even Signs! These feature items will help you fill space as well, but also bring life to the tree.
  • We love a color scheme- next we add in those colored ornament balls in groups of 2 or 3 to create a pop of color and give them a purpose. Sometimes when you place a single ornament ball it can look quite lonely.
  • Now comes my favorite part! Adding those individual touches with special ornaments.  Place these ornaments somewhere they will shine bright.
  • Finally, we’re huge fans of tree filler. Grab all the branches or what we call “sprigy’s”- these can be as festive as large lollipops or more natural branches with cranberries.  Whatever your desire, use them to fill in any remaining open space and to elevate your tree décor.
  • My final recommendation is to make sure the top of your tree really stands out. This is your cherry on top!

Make sure you visit The Carolina Inn now until January 4th to see our fully decorated hotel including our 12 days of Christmas vignettes.  Visit carolinainn.com to see our full list of 12 days of Christmas events this season and bring some magic back to 2020.

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