Have you been hanging Christmas tree lights wrong all along?

It’s the time of year where holiday lights pepper the homes on your street and you crave sitting by the fire with a cup of hot cocoa. You may have started decorating your interior with fairy lights, tinsel and mistletoe – but when it comes to lighting the tree, did you know there’s a right way to do it?

If you just toss your lights into the tree and hope for the best, one designer thinks there’s a better way to do it. For those of us who spend a bit more time swirling the lights from the bottom of the tree to the top, you still aren’t doing it right.

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Designer Francesco Bilotto told the Today Show that the proper way to string your lights is vertically — from the top to bottom. This method allows the lights to be more exposed, appearing more dispersed.

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“The reason I like doing this is if you go around in a circle, the lights tend to go in,” Bilotto said.

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If you’re accustomed to stringing horizontally, there’s more opportunity for the lights to get lost in the branches, according to Bilotto. Using his vertical method allows the bulbs to sit at the tips of the branches, and also makes taking down the lights easier.

While famous Christmas trees like the one you see in New York City’s Rockefeller Center use this lighting tip, we aren’t sure how we feel about it.

What do you think of the horizontal versus vertical debate? How do you decorate your tree?

Let us know what you think by commenting below and tweeting @YahooStyleCA!
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