First of all I would like to look at using the shutter speed to take effective pictures of a christmas tree.  The problem with this is that normally if you want to capture the lights, you will be taking the picture in the dark as such.  In this first image we can see that the tree lights have been out glared by the flash from the camera - this may not seem obvious at first glance, indeed the pink light near father christmas's left hand seems quite bright. 

Now scroll down to see what you can do with the flash off!

The entire tree becomes alive with light bouncing off all the glitter and balls as well as simply coming from the bulbs themselves. 

How do we do this?

First of all select the Tv function on your pen camera and set the shutter delay to around 2 seconds.  This will allow enough time to pass for the image to take in the dark room.  If you have the delay set too fast (i.e 1/100th sec) then the picture comes out black.  I strongly suggest that in different lighting conditions it is wise to take the shot at various levels of delay until the desired effect is achieved.  Additionally for this type of photography - a tripod is a MUST!