Saturday, December 18, 2010

The Christmas Tree Debate

I used to love Christmas decorations.  I had all sorts toy soldiers, wooden apples, nut crackers and a tonne of hand painted (by me) ornaments for my tree.  I'd string popcorn and cranberries, and I've cover the tree in the multicoloured lights that my parents used when I was a kid.  I didn't have a colour scheme - the tree was a hodgepodge of colour  and style that somehow managed to be incredibly Christmasy.  I loved it.

But then I got Tallulah.  Tallulah, when she was younger, was a bundle of energy and curls.  Her first 4 years were a search and destroy mission; and a tree would have been a disaster waiting to happen.    So, we were treeless for a few years, and eventually I got out of the habit of putting one up.

I did buy a prelit 2' tree and put it on my mantle.  I decorated it in a red and white candy theme.  It was so small that I didn't even bother to take off the decorations at the end of the season before storing it away for another year.  Very little effort.

This year, I debated for quite a while.  Should I use the 2' tree again, or should I use the bigger one?  I was confident that Tallulah would be OK around the bigger tree; but is it worth all that trouble for one person?  I was leaning towards no, until I learned that my nephews would be coming to visit for a few days next week.

The nephews would not be impressed with their auntie's puny tree, so I decided to go all out.

Then I saw the Zadge's blue tree, and it occurred to me that I wanted something new.  The mulitcoloured hodgepodge tree has been great; but I was ready for a change.  And darn it, Brian Gluckstein ornaments were on sale.   So, I started with a good basis of Gluckstein design ornaments, and then shopped around town, refusing to pay more then 50% of regular price (almost everything was on 60-70% off.)

I went for purple and grey.  Then I was worried it'd be too dark, so I added white and silver.    I realized after the fact that I'd forgotten to get a tree topper; but this'll have to do.  I am officially done with going into stores until at least a week after the holidays.

Cripes.  José's in the darned picture again.  I swear, I don't plant Tula's rat in my pictures on purpose.

I took the picture in the day, because most of the purple ornaments are so dark, they disappear in photos - but they're glass and there are lots of white lights to shine through them.  They actually look pretty great at night.

6 comments:

  1. Love it!! And every good tree needs a rat.

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  2. Very pretty and festive Janice! I like it! I checked out your link to The Zadge's tree and it is cool too! Jose(how do you do the little thing that belongs in Jose's name? I couldn't do it right when I blogged about the tiel)is pushing for his own blogging rights. Suds never lets up :)

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  3. Thanks, Ladies.

    RR, I think you're onto something. I'll have to be very careful about allowing José into the computer room. - Come to think of it, one of his cohorts- the black rat - is in the toy box behind me. I thought he was the less popular rat, but maybe he's doing reconnaissance.

    As for the accent, my old Dell was set up with both languages because I occasionally (rarely) work in French. Even then, getting the accent while otherwise speaking English was a series of keystrokes that I rarely remembered, so I'd go online and cut/paste. On a Mac, you just type Option/e, then e again. Much easier.

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  4. The tree turned out very nicely. I'm not having a tree this year for the second year in a row, it's very liberating.

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  5. I love colourful hodgepodge trees :) I haven't had a tree since I moved out on my own, though - too much bother for one (very lazy) single lady living on her own. ;) I used to have a wee stump with fake branches jabbed in it, and I have 6 cute snowmen ornaments... but the cats chewed on that stump to much, and it was given up.

    now i decorate friend's trees! :D (and bring my little snowmen along :) )

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  6. you are an awesome aunt going all out for the nephews :)

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