7 Colorful Christmas Tree Theme Ideas You Need to Try

Spend Christmas in a country cottage. Image: John Lewis

Baubles and Christmas Tree decorations have come a long way since I was a child. There wasn’t much thought going into Christmas tree theme ideas, we just put what we loved on the tree!

Every year my Mum would get the Christmas box down from the loft, accompanied by a Babycham and some Christmas music blaring in the background. The box would consist of brightly colored foil ceiling garland hanging decorations, satin baubles, fairy lights in the shape of flowers that made your tree look like a psychedelic rave, and foil stars.

1980s and 1990s foil Christmas decorations — Many of these foil decorations graced our living room throughout the 80s and 90s

We would spend the second Sunday in December (never a day earlier!) with Top of the Pops blaring from the TV and a bottle of Babycham opened in celebration whilst we decorated the 5-foot-tall faux Christmas tree.

My favorite part was hanging the chocolate decorations. My Mum tells me I was very skillful at taking the chocolate out of the foil but making sure the foil retained its shape. It would dangle from the tree all Christmas without anyone knowing there was no chocolate left!

There has been an explosion of Christmas tree theme ideas in the last few years and anything goes. You can either craft your own Christmas tree decorations or experiment with your own Christmas decoration colors that suit the style of your interiors and home.

Christmas Tree Theme Ideas

Christmas tree decorated with white and blue decorations, pine flooring, dark green walls, christmas twig tree decoration above the fireplace and chunky knit blanket — The changing faces of my Christmas trees over the years. Christmas 2018

I do like a bit of crafting at Christmas, but as a lot of people tell me, it’s all about time! December tends to be one of the busiest periods of the year, so realistically, (unless you’re a blogger/influencer if you take one look at Instagram) who has the time to create all their own decorations?

I always try to keep to a Christmas tree color theme every year and in the past, I’ve had red, green gold, blue, white, and teal! There are some amazing Christmas decoration colors to choose from.

In this blog post, I have included 7 of my favorite Christmas tree ideas for 2023 with bauble and decorations. I have tried to keep the links up to date, but these baubles sell fast!

Traditional Christmas Tree

Christmas tree with floral white, pink and red decorations. Dark green wall and gold mirror above the fireplace — Christmas decoration colors for 2020

I am a sucker for traditional Christmas decoration colors. Red, gold, and green are synonymous with Christmas and it is believed it comes from ancient Celtic peoples that used evergreen red and green holly plants to help keep Earth alive and beautiful throughout the dead of winter.

Gold is a symbol of royalty and wealth and symbolizes one of the gifts Jesus was given by the Wise Men. I have tried many different color schemes over the years but I always come back to these three colors.

I have a lot of green and gold in my home, so this Christmas tree color theme works really well without much effort!

Christmas tree in the living room with red and gold flowers, lots of lights and a gallery wall — Christmas Tree 2020. I reverted back to green, gold, and red after experimenting with blue. We didn’t have a Christmas tree in our living room last year due to renovating!

moodboard of green, red and gold Christmas decorations including glitter ball, gold lips and stars

Animal Print

Ok, so I love a bit of animal print. But I didn’t realize this was a Christmas tree color theme thing until I started looking at baubles for this blog post. And oh my goodness, do I want a tree covered in animal print!

So unique and fun, you can easily team it up with black and gold accessories and animal ornaments to really pull it off. Who is going all leopard print this year?

a colorful tree with parrots, leopards, peacocks and rainbow baubles — Nestling easily between animal print and rainbow splendor is this colorful tree. Image: John Lewis

Rainbow Splendor

Rainbow themed christmas tree with christmas tree and star neons in a living room with bright blue wall — John Lewis Pop Art Tree uses rainbow-colored decorations to fabulous effect

There seem to be a lot of colorful, joyful decorations around this year. I love browsing my social media feeds to see everyone’s interpretation of Christmas decor. If your home is full of color, this is a brilliant way to incorporate Christmas decoration colors into your home.

What can be more wonderful than decorating our Christmas trees with all the colors of the rainbow There are certainly plenty of baubles to choose from.

Colorfully Kitsch

kitsch christmas colourful wreath with barbie dolls, old toys and neon bright ribbons — Last Christmas the very clever @mucknbrass used old toys and plastic to create these completely kitsch Christmas wreaths.

This leads me to kitsch! I am absolutely loving all the novelty Christmas decorations you can buy online and on the high street these days. There really is something for everyone but I particularly love the weird and wacky baubles that are increasingly appearing in the shops and can help you have a truly unique Christmas tree color theme.

Last year we started to see people making Christmas Decorations out of unwanted plastic items and toys. mucknbrass.com had the wonderful idea of sending all your unwanted plastic to her and she would turn it into an eclectic Christmas wreath. Think of unwanted Barbie dolls sitting next to an old fidget toy.

Kitsch is described as objects that are considered to be in poor taste but ironically become extremely popular. Kitsch items can also provide glorious color to your Christmas tree and really give it personality.

It has now become a bit of a tradition in the Boyden household where we let the kids choose a ridiculous decoration every year, the more bizarre the better! The Tiger King nestled next to a Turkey Sandwich anyone?

kitsch mood board with christmas jumper baubles, tomato ketchup and roller skate decorations

Pastel Christmas Decorations

Pastel inspired Christmas tree with pink flowers and white baubles in the living room — I love how @_lisa_dawson_ uses pastel colors on her Christmas tree

I must admit, I’m not one for pastel colours but I do love how they look together on a Christmas tree and are an extremely popular Christmas tree colour theme. Pastel doesn’t mean just pink. An under-the-sea theme was a big hit in 2021 with plenty of fish, mermaids, jellyfish, and sharks in the form of Christmas decorations.

Using Christmas decorations colors of soft blues, greens, and lilacs work perfectly alongside pink. Pastel decorations are a silkier version of the rainbow theme and give it a fairy-tale feel with whimsical unicorns, starfish, and octopuses.

Pretty pastels moodboard with purple and pink mermaid tale, pink clip on flowers and pastel baubles

White Christmas

a tree with white and champagne decorations — You can always rely on Cox & Cox to provide the perfect Scandi all-white tree.

You can’t write a piece on Christmas without throwing white in somewhere. A bit like pastels, I’m not one for an all-white or grey theme. I have always been about colour but there is something pure and minimal about an all-white Christmas tree.

And just because it is all white, it doesn’t have to be all boring! You can still add a touch of kitsch and creativity to your tree, there really are baubles for every Christmas tree color theme out there.

All white christmas tree decorations mood board

Whimsical

The most wonderfully cozy Christmas setup. Image credit: John Lewis

Cottagecore has been quite a big trend over the last few years with design centering around nature, woodland animals, and plants. I love these Christmas theme ideas!

Cottagecare is all about creating a magical nature woodland setting, there’s no theme more perfect for Christmas, and can provide an endless amount of Christmas tree ideas.

Whimsical Cottagecore inspired Christmas tree decorations including a felt deer, mushrooms and hedgehogs

A beautiful tree sitting easily in its surroundings!

If you fancy keeping your tree simple and very 2023, consider going with a sage green Christmas tree. This is a wonderful way to keep your tree natural and it looks good with DIY Christmas decor and natural materials.

There are so many different Christmas tree color themes to choose from, we really are spoilt for choice! I hope you found some inspiration from these Christmas tree decorating ideas. Which theme do you think you will go for this Christmas?

7 Colorful Christmas Tree Theme Ideas You Need to Try