Products in this post were sent complimentary from Oriental Trading. All opinions are my own.

There’s something about bright lights and holiday decorating that puts me in a festive spirit. So yes, I’m that crazy gal that gets her tree up and decorated before Thanksgiving. Mostly because I wasn’t sure if I could pull off a Luau Santa Christmas Tree, but I did and LOVE it! It’s quirky, colorful, unique, and so fun!

This tree was inspired by the Luau Santa collection from Oriental Trading. It’s such a fun collection and totally fits in with my love of all things tropical. I think Luau Santa and his tropical posse are adorable! The bright colors and tropical characters in the collection gave me a great jumping off point.

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A fun and bright tree for the holidays...Luau Santa Christmas Tree!

Luau Santa Christmas Tree

Palm and Lei Garland

Unlike last year’s tropical ocean Christmas tree, this year’s Luau Santa Christmas tree is a lot more colorful with a playful vibe. I wanted the tree to reflect Santa’s vacation in the tropics and fun at the beach. Since my tree only had white lights, I began the Luau Santa transformation by adding large bright lights to give it some tropical color. To further carry on the tropical look, I replaced the typical Christmas garland with a bright lei garland and faux tropical palm garlands.

Note: Triple wrap the bright lei garland and layer the faux tropical palm garlands over it. This will help the palm garlands pop out against the tree.

Luau Santa Centerpiece Topper

Once the tree was wrapped, I flattened out the top of the tree and secured the Luau Santa Centerpiece on with some chenille stems. I wasn’t sure if a table centerpiece was going to work as a topper, but it fits perfectly on our 7 ft. tree. I know some like to add the topper last, but I like to do it in the beginning so I don’t have to worry about knocking off any ornaments.

Large Ornaments

Now to the fun part…decorating with ‘ornaments’! I always place the large items first and fill in any spaces with smaller things. I started by filling in the tree with the largest items, like the 11″ Luau Christmas Medium Beach Balls and Mini Pink Flamingo Yard Ornaments. The mini pink flamingo yard ornaments are adorable as-is, but I glued mini Santa hats onto them.

Note: The balls do slowly deflate over time, some more than others. I just add more air when needed, which isn’t a big deal. If you don’t want to deal with that, paper lanterns might be a better option.

Small DIY Ornaments

After the large items were placed in the tree, I filled in the spaces with DIY ornaments, medium polyester palm leaves, and a few of my own glitter balls. I’ll be sharing tutorials for ALL the DIY ornaments this week, so stay tuned! But here’s a super easy way to fill in the tree spaces…cut the trim off the Luau Santa dessert plate! Yup, I trimmed off the striped edge (save this), punched a hole, added a loop, and hung it on the tree! It doesn’t get any easier than that and you can see it in the image above next to the beach ball.

DIY Ornaments:

Easy DIY Tropical Cocktail Ornament

Painted Pineapple Container Ornament

DIY Glitter Beach Sunglass Ornaments

Luau Santa Beach Ball Christmas Ornament

Finally, I used the cut plate edge to add some interest to round luau fringe placemats that I hung on the wall. I also glued a few of the same placemats to some cloth to create a tree skirt.

I hope you enjoyed my non-traditional Luau Santa Christmas tree. If you want to create your own version, check out the supplies I used to decorate this tree in the shopping list below.