Dreaming of a black Christmas? If you aren't prepared to ease off on the spooky life for the festive season, you have a few options for your tree in the form of gothic baubles by Killstar and other brands.

Killstar's 7cm round 'Hexmas' baubles - sold in a box of 12 - are black with white celestial skull designs: three each of sun, moon and star. Nemesis Now have a set of 12 baubles which are small 4.3cm skulls wearing red Santa hats. The Nocturnis brand stocked by The Gothic Shop includes several coloured glitter baubles with spooky patterns, e.g. skulls and spiders.

We haven't got a black Christmas tree in our house, or black tinsel decorations etc. although we discussed having them. We wanted to recreate the feeling of our 1980's childhood Christmases for our girls, so we've gone with a standard dark green tree, multicoloured lights, and mismatched baubles and decorations in shiny red, green, blue, gold and silver. It's gaudy and I love it. And it's only for a few weeks.

I like the look of the Killstar baubles, so I bought them anyway. They're on display in an upstairs room the kids don't go into, so I can enjoy them without darkening our technicolour Christmas downstairs. They're hanging on a black plastic jewellery tree; originally intended for necklaces, the tree branches are styled as the horns of a stag (which I can imagine is a reindeer for my purposes). I think it works quite well.

UPDATE 01/12/19: Killstar have released two new sets of baubles this year (2019). The first is a set of 12 'Krampus' print baubles, in three black and white designs like last year's celestial ones. I have seen the demonic or devilish Krampus figure feature more prominently each year as a fixture of 'spooky' Christmas celebrations; from what I have read on Wikipedia he appears to be the counterpart to St. Nicholas (the traditional Santa/Father Christmas), who punishes naughty children. He's a part of central European folklore, and not something I grew up with in the UK. I expect we'll see more of him in the future, but I gave the baubles a miss because I don't have any connection to the Krampus figure as yet.

The second set of baubles are much more my style. They are a set of six stylised black bats with filigree-patterned relief. They measure about 12cm across the wings. To be honest, these 'Noctem Hexmas' baubles are made of a lightweight black matt plastic, and feel a bit cheaply made when examined up close. But they are pretty, and would look very nice on a gothic-themed tree.