It doesn’t matter whether you like putting yours up months in advance or prefer to leave it until the final few weeks of the year – we all love sprucing up our homes as the festive season approaches.

And while the tradition of putting up Christmas trees and lights will likely never go out of fashion, modern day decorations are rather bland compared to the crazy, colourful, foil fire hazards we stuck to our walls and ceilings during the 80s. Here are 10 delightful Christmas decorations that are guaranteed to transport you back to your wonderful childhood.

10. Hanging Foil Garlands

Modern burglar alarms limit the use of hanging Christmas decorations, especially within the workplace, but the massive, foil garlands we filled our living rooms with in the 80s meant that we could barely move as December 25th approached.

These corner-to-corner foil monstrosities had more colours than the rainbow and often hung so low that they almost touched the floor. While we accept that they may have looked rather awful, they also remind us of our childhood, so there’s a part of us that really misses them.

9. Satin Baubles

Credit: Jo Naylor via Flickr

Many people like to restrict the colours on their Christmas tree to red and silver, but we remember ours being filled with all kinds of garish combinations that we thought looked utterly beautiful.

We particularly recall hanging bright, satin baubles on the trees of our youth, because not only did we think they look rather classy, but we also loved the wonderful feeling they gave us when we ran our little fingers over their smooth, spherical surface.

8. Paper Chains

Credit: Emily Orpin via Flickr

They may have been flimsy and easily ripped, but the joy we received from creating them alongside our siblings and parents meant that paper chains were a yearly tradition that we were always reluctant to give up.

Paper chains allowed us to create multicoloured, personalised decorations for our bedroom, so they are a real reminder of the Christmases that we experienced during the 80s.

7. Multicoloured Tree Lights

Modern-day Christmas lights are functional, but their complete lack of exciting colours means that we still long for the unreliable, cheap versions that we spun round our plastic tree around three and a half decades ago.

We may have had to wait hours for our dad to find the one broken bulb that was preventing all of the other lights from working, but it was always worth it when the full range of bright and varied colours was eventually illuminated.

6. Foil Baubles

You couldn’t really call them classy, but the foil baubles we hung on our tree during the 1980s never failed to put a smile on our young faces.

Not only did these massive, misshapen decorations look wonderfully shiny, but they were also extremely pleasant to bend and scrunch when our parents weren’t looking.

5. Brass Angel Chimes

Christmas Day often meant having to sit for hours whilst mum finished cooking our turkey dinner, but it was always worth the wait when we eventually got to tuck into the delicious meat, potatoes and trimmings – minus the Brussels sprouts of course.

But our Christmas dinner wouldn’t have been complete without the gorgeous, brass angels that would magically start moving when we lit the candle beneath them, causing them to chime the bells as they flew around.

4. Paper Snowflakes

Credit: Leonora (Ellie) Enking via Flickr

Just like the aforementioned paper chains, the process of making our own snowflakes was almost as exciting as the end result itself.

These paper decorations gave all the windows in our house a seasonal sparkle, with every single one of them being as individual as the small hands that crafted them.

3. Folding Foil Stars

Credit: lisaleo via Pixabay

The annual anticipation of bringing down boxes of decorations from the loft still hasn’t left us, because unpacking the various sparkly delights never failed to put a smile on our young faces.

We particularly remember decorations of the folding foil variety, which initially would look very small and neat, but which once unpacked would unfurl into an impressive, multicoloured star or bell.

2. Glass Baubles

Credit: Flittergreeze via Wikimedia Commons

The Christmas decorations we always had to be very careful with were the tree baubles that were made out of glass, as just one false step meant smashing one of these prized, seasonal possessions.

Once we had ensured that the bauble was hanging very securely on our recently erected tree, we always took great delight in viewing our misshapen reflection on its shiny surface.

1. Paper Streamers

While they might be more ‘budget’ Christmas decorations than others on this list, paper streamers are still able to force a smile on our tired, adult faces.

The cheapness of these long, curling decorations meant that we were able to cover our house from head to toe with them, creating a jungle of festive merriment.