Mine is losing needles like the clappers now and it will soon be time to take it down.

And when it comes to putting away the tree decorations I will carefully pack the old bits of tinsel, the glittered decorations I made in primary school (in the 1980s!), and all the baubles, feather birds, bearded santas etc I have collected over the years, and of course the *colour* fairy lights.

And to me that's what a christmas tree should be - a random collection of meaningful bits-and-bobs, nothing too contrived.

Yet in nearly every house I've been into this Christmas, the tree has been a rather clinical affair, usually themed e.g 'tartan' or 'white and purple'. Uniform bows everywhere, stark white fairy lights, and no evidence whatsoever that any children have had a hand in the decorating process. And these were households with little children.

What's your tree like? A riot of frivolity or a statement of interior decor?

I've got a white tree with orange baubles and tinsel and soft lights. When he kids were little I had a massive tree, it was full of random stuff they'd made but now they're older I downsized to a little 3ft tree that doesn't take all day to do.

Perhaps I'm stuck in middle-childhood!

I dont like coordinated trees.

A proper christmas tree must look like a gay pride festive has thrown up a rainbow over it.....

Ha ha perhaps but there's nothing wrong with that. I ended up with two puppies a couple of years ago and it seemed a good time to give the big tree to my daughter and buy a little tree I could keep away from the pups.

My tree is like yours. Its full of stuff, some of which I've had for 40+ years, that I've inherited from my parents and in-laws, and that my kids made at school. This year I sadly had to chuck some angels away because they were disintegrating; I must have had them for 30 years at least.

Then every year I buy some new stuff, which goes on the tree as well as all the old stuff.

I would never have a "theme"; gold and green, blue and silver, whatever. I despise such things, but lots of people do it now, seemingly.

My tree is a collection of decorations from over the years. Some of them are older than I am. I love all the different decorations and will buy a new 1 or 2 each year. Most of the decorations have a memory behind them too. Could be where or when I got it, if someone gave it to me etc so they all mean something too.

I really dislike non green christmas trees and not a fan of ones with all decorations the same colour. I know some people that chuck out their deicrations at the end of each season and then buy new ones the next year in whatever colour scheme they are going for that year.

Red, green and gold without fail. As they should be.

I'll take boring over gaudy any year. I'm just glad those red, gold and green dangly things that were pinned into the ceiling and hung about a foot down along with tinsel around the walls have died a death.

Give me a tasteful understated look anytime where if it looks cluttered you've done it wrong.

Although I'm not against a fairy on top from 20 years ago and some objects made by the children when they were 4 as long as you can still see the tree otherwise you may as well just hang it up on the wall in a tree shape.

They didn't, you did.

Like yours it tells a story. Little baked and sparkled ornaments made by my kids years ago, baubles with memories. Shells decorated from holidays abroad. This year my grandson and I made dough we cut into shapes , decorated and put on the tree. My tree is a lovely memory of years of christmases. Every year they fight to make the star for the top of the tree.

Well, no I didn't. I don't do christmas myself as I don't like it as it reminds me too much of what I've lost. But even as a child I hated the gaudiness of it.

Festivals aren't meant to be 'tasteful'!

Even though my tree is a collection of ornaments from over the years I think it is actually quite tasteful too - there is nothing gaudy on it and the colours all go. Not really sure how that worked out considering the age and different parts of the world some of them came from.

The modern styles with one colour look far more gaudy to me.

I hated those foil decorations that hung from the ceiling too though.

I do have tinsel on the tree but it's all silver and nice, not cheap tatty looking stuff.

What's taste ? Your taste may me my idea of hell. My taste might be your nightmare.
My tree is in my home, it's not for public consumption where taste or otherwise is relevant . I don't decorate my tree with any consideration to taste. It is what it is. It's for and about 40 years of family. It clashes in places like us , it's idiosincratic like us, and like our family it's unique.

I think there's a middle ground.

For example our Christmas tree has no tinsel or anything like that and the lights are fairly even spread and neat. But we have multi coloured lights as no one in our house can stand those beige white lights that adorn most trees (certainly all the public ones). Also we have lots of baubles and trinkets that mean something, from things my mum had as a child to things other members of the family made.

This year i didnt have time to put up a big tree.

I plumped for a small table top. Id also bought a box of assorted ornaments. Each one old-fashioned looking and each a different toy.

They look smashing on the small tree. Gave that 'mixed look' without to much effort. I then also bought a few red cerry lights to add a little something extra.

Small but effective.....

I love my tree, it has decorations that are mostly old and with sentiment, I bought a couple new this year. I let the children decorate it abd once they are asleep in rearrange it they don't mind (or notice my reshuffle) and I have no issue with them rearranging a few baubles (nor the cat doing it).
It looks tasteful for us, it looks colourful, warm and not imo sterile like a corporate business tree.

Ps hated the foil type hanging decorations (in the 70s/80s)

My mum still puts the foil decorations up every year! 😂 Although my parents do have a very tasteful tree in red, gold & green.

Add me to the tasteful decorations only group. My mother in law insists on buying gaudy personalised baubles for us which never see the light of day.

We have two trees. The one in our living room is a themed affair, depending on my mood - this year it is all red, purple and gold and has white lights. We also have one in the porch which is covered in multicoloured glass baubles and multicoloured lights.

That sounds gorgeous

My tree is most definitely not boring! It's an absolute mass of colour and mixture, some things new that have replaced broken or damaged items, but many are old , stuff me and my brother made as children or that have been given by various people. Loads of baubles in greens, reds and golds but also some really lovely ones bought from Aldi a couple of years back which are white and red, very traditional Austrian sort of looking. Multicoloured strings of beads. Glittery foam snowflakes which were once on a set of fairy lights but when they broke I removed them all to save wasting them. Tons of tinsel in red, green, gold, silver, red& white, multicoloured, I couldn't decide which one so I put them all on! It's a really big tree, it needs a ton of decorations or it looks half done. The top has a very old star that is starting to show its age and a little plastic Father Christmas model with a cotton wool beard that is as least 30-40 years old if not more. He used to to be on the top of the old tree but when a new one was bought it looked ridiculously small so he now sits nestled in the top below the star instead. As for fairy lights, I used to only use the coloured ones, but they broke and I got given my late gran's set as a replacement. Their clear but I can't bring myself to change them or even want to, there's enough of them to fit the tree and it's so colourful with everything else it really doesn't matter that the lights are plain.

I have got the foil hanging decorations on the ceiling, they were very hard to find but they seem to have reappeared. Their not in the same lovely colours as the ones we had when I was little though, we had one set in red and gold and another in blue and silver, they looked lovely strewn alternatingly across the ceiling. They also lasted better, we had them for years whereas the ones now seem to be disposable as they either break or won't fold back up properly.

The only Christmas decorations I don't like are black trees (who on earth thought such a depressing colour would suit a cheerful bright happy thing like a Christmas tree?!) and those strange upside down ones that looked like a lady's downstairs smile.

I prefer the tree out in the garden, unadorned as nature intended (though nature wouldn't have put a Norway Spruce in Sussex).

I like a good old 1970s looking tree with different coloured lights, blue, red, gold, green and silver tinsel. All different coloured baubles, in all different shapes but my daughter won't let me have it that way anymore. Our tree is very beautiful and nicely decorated with everything in it's place...but it isn't really a Christmas tree. When she moves out, I'm bringing it back 😀

Back in the days when we had a separate dining room, I did have a blue and silver theme going on in there with the decorations and tree, and thought it looked absolutely magical. The tree that got seen the most though was my 'gaudy' tree, which took pride of place in the living room.

Now that we've only got the space for one tree, the blue and silver effort has been given the elbow - my gaudy tree will always be number one

Some of the decorations on it date back almost 25 years to when my older kids made them in nursery school and some are even older - I've had them for so long that I can't even remember where they came from. The most recent one is a little Bristol Rovers FC stocking my son bought me two years ago. Gaudy tree has always got lots of chocolate tree decorations on it too, which I make myself every year by wrapping an assortment of fun size chocolate bars in Christmas paper and adding a hanging loop made from parcel ribbon. Fairy Mary sits on top, presiding over what could well look like a badly tossed salad to everyone else, but we're not bothered. We like our gaudy tree

We still have one of the long foil ceiling decorations too, stuck up well out of the way of six foot two husband, who murdered the other one during a hissy fit brought on by walking into it once too often