How To: Make Your Decorated Christmas Tree Mathematically Perfect

Christmas is just a few weeks away and the decorating has already begun. The centerpiece for most home during the holiday is, of course, the Christmas tree. But let's face it—that tree can be a big pain in the ass to decorate. You'll run out of tinsel, your lights will be too short, and a missing bulb with throw the whole thing off balance.

Going overboard on the tinsel and ornaments creates an overwhelming eyesore of a Christmas tree, while a undecorated tree will depress you to death. That's what you really need on the holidays.

In an effort to solve this problem and create the most perfectly balanced Christmas tree, a few math students from the University of Sheffield created this 'treegonometry' formula.

The formula uses the tree's height (in centimeters) and calculates the exact number of ornaments needed, length of tinsel to be bought, and even the perfect height for the star or angel to go on top.

For instance, if you go out and buy a 6 foot tree, which is 180cms, you would need 37 ornaments, around 919cms of tinsel, and 565cms of lights and an 18cm tall star. If you want to go even bigger and impress the neighbors with a 10 foot tree (305cm), you would need 63 ornaments, 1,557cms of tinsel, 958cms of lights, and a 31cm tall star.

If you don't want to do the math in your head, just head on over to their online calculator to get all of the proper calculations. Seriously, this is the best way to make your Christmas tree perfectly balanced for the holidays. An unbalanced decorated tree will give off some bad juju—and do you really want bad juju where all of your gifts are going? I don't think so.

For those of you looking for a more modern and relaxed approach (or if you can't afford spending $100+ on a real Christmas tree), check out these 7 great DIY Christmas tree alternatives.