How to Decorate a Red, White & Blue Christmas Tree

The Fourth of July, Veteran's Day, Labor Day and Memorial Day are all holidays with the underlying theme of patriotism, but that doesn't mean you can't show your patriotism during other holidays as well. Decorate your home in a festive and patriotic way for Christmas with a red, white and blue Christmas tree. With a little creativity and persistence when shopping for ornaments, you can achieve a Christmas tree that screams, "I love the USA!"

Things You'll Need

• String
• Cranberries
• Popcorn
• Needle
• Thread
• Small stick-mounted American flag around 4 to 6 inches
• Red, white and glue 1/4-inch grosgrain ribbon
• Ruler
• Scissors
• Blue Christmas lights
• Red, white and blue glass ball ornaments
• Peppermint and blueberry candy canes
• American flag-themed ornaments
• Denim
• Hot glue gun

Instructions

1. Wrap diagonally a piece of string around the Christmas tree to measure how much length you need for garland or lights.

2. Use a needle and thread to string cranberries and popcorn into a garland in strands that are 5 feet long. Tie the ends of the strands together once you have enough to create a garland as long as your piece of string.

3. Measure and cut a 10-inch length of each of your grosgrain ribbons. Stack the three ribbons, and use them to tie a small stick-mounted American flag to the top of your tree as a tree topper. Tie the ribbons in a bow.

4. Wrap your popcorn and cranberry garland around the tree. Link together as many strands of blue Christmas lights together as necessary to make the string of lights as long as your string. Wrap the lights around the tree between the layers of garland you wrapped. This will keep the heat of the lights from affecting your garland as it is made of food.

5. Hang red, white and blue glass ball ornaments on the tree. Keep the colors evenly dispersed over the surface of the tree, and don't forget to decorate the back of the tree -- even if it is pushed up against a wall or placed in a corner.

6. Hang peppermint and blueberry candy canes from the branches of the tree. Hang the candy canes from branches that don't already have ornaments hanging from them. Again, try to keep the color disbursement even.

7. Hang American flag-themed ornaments from some of the remaining branches that aren't yet decorated.

8. Cut stars approximately 3 inches in size from denim. Fold your denim in half so you have pairs of identical stars if you are working with a cut of denim fabric from a fabric store. Cut the stars through both layers of flattened denim blue jeans if you are using old pants to cut the stars from.

9. Cut a 5-inch length of grosgrain ribbon from any of the three colors you have for each pair of denim stars. Fold the lengths of grosgrain in half. Put the pairs of denim stars together with the right-sides facing out. Hot glue the two stars together with the ends of a folded ribbon placed between the two layers of each pair. This creates blue star ornaments. Hang the ornaments on the tree from the ribbon loops.

Tips & Warnings

• The amount and length of each ornament, garland, lights and candy canes you need depend entirely on the size of your tree and how full you want the decorations.

• Hang your red, white and blue decorations from a real or artificial evergreen tree or from a red, white and blue artificial tree.