There's a good chance you've been decorating Christmas trees annually since you were a kid. There are so many different approaches, and the way your family did it isn't necessarily the route you have to take.

If you’re new to crochet, a star pattern is actually quite easy. It begins with a magic circle and extends outward. All you need is yarn, a crochet hook, and a darning needle to craft your very own tree topper with handcrafted appeal.

Next stop, tinseltown! December is upon us — time to put up the tree and pull the dusty box (or boxes) marked “Xmas” out of the crawl space. But, one expert suggests, before you decorate the traditional conifer — or conifer-like plastic apparatus,