You’ve been hanging the fairy lights all wrong! Expert divides opinion with zig zag method instead of coiling around the branches
- Clare Hooper, 46, said that coiling lights round a Christmas tree is incorrect
- Former professional Christmas tree decorator suggests zig-zag technique
- Clare, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, hangs her lights up and down the tree
- She loops them around the highest and lowest branches to support the lights
A former professional Christmas tree decorator has sparked controversy on social media after she shared her tips on the correct way to put lights on a tree.
Clare Hooper, 46, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, took to TikTok to explain that coiling lights round a Christmas tree is the wrong way of hanging them.
In her video, Clare demonstrates how she uses a ‘zig-zag’ method to hang her lights, looping them around a high branch and then running them vertically down the length of the tree.
Former professional Christmas tree decorator Clare Hooper, 46, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, caused controversy on social media after suggesting that coiling your lights around a Christmas tree is the wrong way to decorate it
When the lights reach the base of the tree, she loops them around a low-hanging branch and goes back up with them again.
Speaking in the short clip, Clare said: ‘If you’re coiling your Christmas tree lights, you are doing it wrong.
‘Decorating Christmas trees used to be part of my job.
‘We used the zig-zag method. It means you don’t waste lights round the back of your tree and if a set breaks you can take them off really easily.’
Instead, Clare suggested her own method of zig-zagging the lights up and down the tree, looping the lights around some of the highest and lowest branches, and only on the visible sections of the tree
Since being posted on November 22, Clare’s video has been viewed more than 2.4million times and has received more than 116,000 likes.
However, Clare’s light hanging tip didn’t go down too well, with many people in the comments section of the video expressing their criticism.
One person said: ‘I’ve never been so enraged by anything in my life. The tree is supposed to have lights ALL around it.
‘We don’t skip a section.’
Another person pointed out that Clare’s zig-zag method meant you could ‘see the wires so much more’.
People were quick to express their criticism of Clare’s light hanging technique, with one person saying the method ‘enraged’ her because you’re supposed to have lights all the way round the tree
Not all of the comments were negative though, with other people expressing their amazement at the ingenuity of the idea.
One person said that they’d never heard of the zig-zag method but that it made total sense.
Another said: ‘I’m gonna start doing it like this.’
A third commented: ‘Omg I never thought of this. Buzzing to do mine now.’
Other people were impressed by Clare’s zig-zag technique, with a few saying they would be trying the method out from now on