Try a “Themed” Christmas Celebration This Year! Everyone loves a good theme party. So why not introduce the fun of “theming” to your next Christmas? Although Christmas in itself is a theme that is easy to work with, layering on an additional theme can give you focus and unity in your Christmas decor shopping. There are a wealth of unique Christmas themes to choose from! From choosing a specific color for your Christmas tree and Christmas decorations, to selecting your favorite sports team, the options are endless. If you’re totally clueless about where to begin in picking a theme for your next holiday season, think about all of your favorite hobbies and see if you can turn one of them into a theme. Why not convert that love into a theme. Decorate your tree with musical note ornaments and use old CD’s to make a funky shiny garland. Pet themed decorations can include chew toys, cute stuffed animals and snap shots of your furry friend in mini frames. Even if it’s just your tree you choose to decorate in theme, get creative with ornaments, lights and garlands.

Find furniture miniatures at a toy store, attach a thread to them, and loop around your branches to make a “tree house.” It’s easy to make anything into an ornament with some hooks and bows, so let your ideas flow. For starters, think about all your interests, make a list and pick one that you think you could really elaborate or showcase on a tree. Theme parties or themed décor has never been a new thing, but a themed Christmas? Don’t second guess it. We guarantee you’ll have a lot of fun with this now and holiday seasons to come.Christmas gives us lots of opportunities to express ourselves, but taking advantage of them sometimes requires a little inspiration. So to help you into that holiday headspace, we asked 12 creative folks here at Hallmark to get personal—in Christmas-tree form. The results were just delightful. Flip through the slideshow below to see what we mean…and to get excited about the possibilities of your own holiday decorating.Create and share with #hallmark.

“I’ve been baking gingerbread houses since I was a child—for me, nothing signals the start of the holiday season like the smell of freshly baked gingerbread. Inspired by the houses I’ve made every year, I decided to decorate my tree in gingerbread, too. I constructed a gingerbread box around the base of my tree, and then I adorned the branches with fondant snowflakes covered with festive dragées. Even the garland is made of fondant.” —Bernard Shondell “My favorite day of the year is Halloween, so if I can stretch it throughout the year I’ll do it! I have an 8½-foot-tall Christmas tree at home that is completely decked out in Halloween ornaments that I’ve been collecting since I was a teenager.” —Andrea Ring “My Grandma Betty was Swedish, and my Grandpa Rube was Norwegian, so I have always had a Scandinavian association with Christmas. My dad has kept up the traditions of our heritage—making a big batch of lefse (Norwegian flatbread) every Christmas Eve, which we all take turns flipping.

Birchwood, cozy sweaters (or knitting), cold Iowa snow, reindeer bells, Norwegian recipes…these were all elements of a ‘God Jul’ (Merry Christmas) in my family.” —Amber Goodvincheap homemade christmas gift ideas boyfriend “I have been collecting antique Christmas ornaments for years and have a special interest in finding old mushrooms, whether they are German glass or spun cotton. decorating your home studioIn the spirit of the early Christmas lore of mystical mushrooms and woodland traditions, I was inspired to make my own. best paint for exterior useI love to fill my Christmas tree with little mushrooms I made from felt, sparkly cotton snowballs, Lapland reindeer and forest gnomes.” —Betsy Ganttcool ideas for decorating christmas tree

“Everyone loves a snow day, no matter what age they are. exterior house design facebookFor me, some of my favorite childhood memories are the ones we spent outside in the snow. cute ways to decorate a white christmas treeSledding was practically a sport! Not to mention snowball fights with my sister, and snow slushies afterwards. I still go jump around in the snow whenever we get a good snowfall here—and just like that, I feel like a kid again.” —Em Bronson “I am all about my hometown, Kansas City. And one thing KC is all about is sports. Especially baseball…especially Royals baseball. I grew up with the Royals as part of our family. We were always going to games, or there was always a game on TV or the radio. My dad even tried out for the team. Baseball is a very important part of our family, and it’s still one of my loves to this day—Go Royals!” —Sara Werner

“For many years, I’ve been making tiny embroidered wool felt gifts I like to call ‘day brighteners.’ Some have little pockets where I can put tiny messages. I like to mail or hand deliver them (sometimes secretly) to friends and family to brighten their day or give them support and comfort. This year I decorated my tree with them—so as guests visit through the season, they will be able to choose one from the tree to take home and brighten their holiday.” —Susan Crilley “My husband and I got married this year, and I wanted to celebrate our first Christmas with a tree that represented our very own ‘best day ever.’ I love succulents (they are all over our home), and last year I learned to make himmeli (traditional Finnish Christmas decorations made from straw or similar material). The airiness and geometric feel of the himmeli with the clean lines and cool colors of the succulents really complemented each other. So naturally, those two elements were a part of our wedding, and now are a part of our Christmas tree, too.” —Lindsay Stanley

“I was inspired by my grandma to learn how to make tatted lace. Although she didn’t tat herself, she had a tatted butterfly framed on her wall for as long as I can remember. I grew up admiring that butterfly—how delicate it was and how amazing it was to me that somebody created it. Now it hangs on my wall! Now that I tat, I like to use a fine thread to create snowflake ornaments—they look so airy and fragile, like real snowflakes. I share them with family and friends, but I keep some to decorate my Christmas tree—it’s like bringing a gentle snowstorm indoors, but without the melting.” —Alyssa Dienhart “Quilting has been an important part of my life, especially since I joined the Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild. The art of quilting has been passed down many generations in my family, all the way down to my mom teaching me to quilt and sew when I was a child. I liked creating these little quilt ornaments because they’re a mix of old and new. I incorporated fabrics passed down from my Grandma Sienknecht with fabrics from my own stash—including some from my wedding!

Then I added in a bit of hand quilting to represent my Grandma Larson. I even added pockets on the back of some of them so we can write little wishes or hopes for the holiday and upcoming year. Next year, we can pull out the ornaments and read over what we’d written this year. It will be fun tradition to start.” —Katie Larson “I designed a Native American tree in honor of my cultural background. My mother was a full-blooded Muscogee Creek Native American. I was brought up around a rich heritage of language, food, music and art. On my tree are ‘God’s Eyes’—which can have different meanings from different tribes, but to me they stand for the power to see and understand things unknown. I also have ‘Dream Catchers’ which symbolize magical webs hung above a bed to catch all bad dreams and allow only good dreams to enter as we sleep.” —Cindy Moody “When my kids were born, I began making one ornament for them each year so they’d have a box full for their first Christmas on their own.