Treemendous Decorations
How to craft the perfect Christmas tree!
It’s nearly Christmas! Which means food, family, and festive fun. Whatever. All I care about is my favourite winter tradition: dragging a tree inside my house and forcing it to dress up in the sparkliest of outfits.
What’s wrong little tree? You want to be outside with your real friends? Tough. You’re my best friend now and that means you have to wear these flashing lights and itchy tinsel.
As much as I love dressing up trees, I’m fed up of all of the mess it makes on my carpet, and all the pine needles ruining my christmas jumpers after too many forced hugs. But this year I’ve found a solution: building Christmas trees inside Minecraft. You should do it too!
Tiny Tree
Our first (and maybe best) Christmas tree is a small one – a tree that can fit inside your littlest home, so it can sit with you by the warm fire while you sip cocoa. For trees there’s nothing better than being inside with no sunshine and a distinct lack of wet soil. Trust me.
Clear a space of at least six blocks in length, width, and height, then follow the instructions below to make your home feel a little more festive.
[1/4] Start by making a tree trunk out of spruce wood. Five blocks high should do it, but you can make it bigger if you want.
[2/4] When adding spruce leaves to your trunk, leave the bottom layer clear. Then you’ll want to put three blocks coming out of the trunk on the next layer up, then two blocks, and just one on the top layer.
[3/4] Add snow underneath your tree to give it that perfect winter look.
[4/4] Finish by adding decorations of your choosing. Maybe redstone torches for lights, tripwire hook for baubles, then green and red banners for some colour? Make the star on top with a fence post, four item frames, and four ender stars. Just a suggestion!
Upside Down Tree
An upside down Christmas tree? Madness! What kind of pagan sorcery is this? Despite the look of it, It’s not as bizarre as it seems. In medieval Europe it was actually quite common to hang fir trees upside down during Christmas to represent the Holy Trinity.
The tradition might have faded over time, but it’s making a comeback this year as one of the hot new fads. What better way to wow people, than to turn their world upside down as they enter your home this winter season? Showering them with gifts and generosity is, frankly, overrated.
[1/4] First, find your highest ceiling and build your tree trunk downwards, leaving at least one block between it and the floor.
[2/4] Now add your leaves across the four faces of the trunk. Keep it thick near the ceiling and get thinner near the floor.
[3/4] Lanterns are ideal as lights or even the star for the top (bottom?) of your tree as they can hang.
[4/4] Add decorations as you wish. Banners, buttons, and torches all work for upside down trees. Experiment to see which other objects work as decorations.
As you can see, an upside down can also be quite practical – it gives you more floor space to fill with presents. But if having extra room isn’t a concern for you then you might want to look at making the next Christmas tree. Come to think of it, where do you hide all the presents? Err, time to check out tree number three!
Giant Tree
Forget Christmas-lighted houses. Nothing says Merry Christmas like a gigantic tree with more lights on it than leaves. You know you’re doing it right when it can be seen it from the next town over. Santa definitely won’t miss your home when he comes round with his sack of presents this year.
The only thing to be wary of is that you’ll need a lot of space and a fair amount of time to build a huge tree. Oh, and your neighbours might start complaining about light pollution. But they’re just jealous of how fabulous you are. Ignore them. Don’t ignore this guide, though.
[1/5] Start by building a 2x2 trunk that gets narrower as you get higher. For a tree with leaves that go 16 blocks across you’ll want a trunk around 22 blocks high. You can go much bigger if you want. You can also put roots in the ground as I have here.
[2/5] Leave a gap at the bottom before you start building layers of leaves. You can put snow on the floor if you wish too.
[3/5] Build your leaf layers in this pattern. That’s 8 blocks out from the four flat faces of the trunk. Then create a row of 4 blocks and join them up along the diagonals.
[4/5] When making your next layer, bring the leaves in a single block, then repeat the pattern you made before. Repeat this but make the higher layers (about halfway up) 3 blocks thick.
[5/5] Once you’ve finished the layers of leaves you’ll want to go back over the whole tree and add leaf blocks at random. This makes the tree look much more natural.
That large tree isn’t bad but you might be able to do better. If you’re feeling really ambitious and want to build an enormous Christmas tree that will truly wow your friends then look no further than YouTuber GeminiTay’s tutorial video below:
This tree looks much more natural and its size and the shape of its branches will let you hang baubles and other decorations from it easily. Oh, I just realised what’s missing from my own gigantic tree!
Decorations
If you just want to decorate a Christmas tree and don’t want to spend time building your own one then this is the section for you. In fact, there’s even a massive Christmas tree you can download and decorate however you want.
[1/4] To make this giant star you’ll need to use black and yellow wool. Focus on creating a section at a time and make any adjustments along the way.
[2/4] Putting tinsel on your tree is actually very easy. Just grab a wool block of your choice and start placing it across your tree. It’s best to start from the top and work your way down, wrapping around your tree – make sure it looks like each block is touching too.
[3/4] For a tree of this size you’re best off using glowstone as it really brightens the night sky. Place them over your tree as you wish but try to not put them too close together. Alternatively, you can use torches for a similar effect.
[4/4] Last but not least, add some presents to the bottom of your tree. These ones are 3x3 and use two different colours of wool block so that they look like they have been wrapped up with a ribbon.
Now gaze upon your beautiful creation. Isn’t it wonderful? Don’t you feel alive?! Of course you do. Have a great holiday!
Disclaimer: no trees were harmed in the creation of this article. They loved every second of it. Trust me.
- Written by
- Chris Priestman
- Published
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