It’s become a tradition in our family. My father did it when I was little, and now I try to keep the tradition going each year that I can. We put up a Christmas star.
The Christmas star is a large star that stretches across the ceiling. It starts with five anchors on the walls, close to the ceiling, in the direction of the five corners of the star. Then we put up a scaffolding made out of string or nylon wire, in the shape of a 5-pointed star. On this scaffolding, we hang streamers, twinkle lights, light rope, or anything else that will make the star visible.
For the past few years, my parents have kept the nylon-wire scaffolding up year-round in their place, making it easy to put up the Christmas star each holiday. This year, we used gold garland streamers to form the star. I’ll try to get a photo of it. For now, here’s a shot of the Christmas star from 2000 (which I just happened to have handy on my hard drive). It’s the first I engineered, and so it’s a little misshapen; the latest construction technique makes for a much more regular star. But this will at least give you an idea of what I’m talking about.
-TimK
P.S. From the above photo, can you tell where the TV is in the room.