The Victorians loved their Christmas trees, and decorated them lavishly. Much time was spent in the weeks leading up to Christmas Eve making homemade ornaments to suspend on the tree branches.

Today store bought decorations have largely replaced homemade ornaments. But if you would like to have Victorian Christmas tree of your own, consider making your own authentic ornaments to hang on the branches of your tree.

Victorians lit their trees with candlelight, which isn’t practical or safe today, but you can now find some stores that carry replica electric lights that mimic candlelight and clip to your tree’s branches to get you started. From there, you can complete the look with these hand-made decorations:

* String popcorn and cranberries for garland. Do every other one or design a particular pattern of your own (three cranberries, two popcorn, five cranberries, etc.) depending on how much of each color you want.

* Dip small cookies cut like snowflakes into glue and then glitter for sparking accents on your tree. To preserve them, spray lightly with either craft preservative or hairspray.

* Paint walnuts (still in the shell) with gold or silver paint. Attach a thin ribbon bow to the top with a thumbtack and hang on the tree.

* Curl small paper doilies into cones and fill with hard candies, nuts or potpourri. Attach ribbon and tie to tree branches. You can find the doilies in a variety of pretty colors.

* Recycle old Christmas cards to decorate your Victorian Christmas tree. Cut out pictures you like and glue to cardboard, then highlight with glitter or metallic fabric paint. Attach colorful ribbons and hang.

You’ll be amazed at how your Victorian Christmas tree glitters and shines with its assortment of genuine period ornaments. Now sit back with a cup of mulled cider and enjoy!