One of the problems with the logarithmic response of our eyes is that it's always kind of hard to use a camera to really capture the effect of things that light up. If there's enough light to see the background, the lights don't jump out as much as they do in person, but if you make the background darker, the lights end up oversaturated.
I kind of like the effect here, though (this is using the "Night Snapshot" setting on our Canon digital camera, with the flash turned off, followed by a bit of GIMPing to bring the levels up a bit). This does also loudly proclaim our Neville Chamberlain atheism, what with the big angel just left of the center, and the prominent Santa Claus just below center.
If you'd like a less ominous view of the tree, here it is with the lights on:
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Beautiful tree, Chad. And I like the look of the first photo. The low levels and incandescent lights give the background a yellow tint that looks a bit like sepia, or maybe a 1970s color photo. A nice little nostalgic touch.
Also, not that you can tell from this picture, but the white thing on the other side of the red ball next to the straw angel in the center? Is an angel elephant.
(Wire wings, halo, and star held in trunk. Hey, it amused me.)
Gorgeous tree, guys. I'm pretty happy with how mine turned out, myself.
As to photographic tricks with light levels, you might find HDR as fascinating as I do. I haven't tried it yet (and apparently there's no straightforward way to accomplish it with The GIMP, sadly), but it looks bloody interesting.