O' Christmas Tree

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

We finally got our Christmas tree this weekend. I'd like to tell you how we tramped out into the woods on Saturday morning through the freshly fallen snow in search of the perfect tree. How we paused to make snow angels. How we hemmed and hawed over which tree to bring home. How a spontaneous snowball fight broke out.

In truth, we looked at exactly one tree - which from a distance looked pretty but ended up being a spruce tree and spruce trees, in my honest opinion, smell like cat piss - before settling on the balsam fir that's currently in the living room. The entire process of getting out of the truck, selecting the tree, chopping down the tree, and throwing it into the pick up bed took approximately 4 minutes.

I explained to Andy that our Christmas tree reconnaissance was going to look kind of half-assed on the blog. "Hey, we got an awesome tree," he said.

It's true.

This year we opted for a vertical, slim tree, rather than a short and squat tree. The slender tree takes up no more space than the chair that was sitting in its place. It's nice to have the twinkly lights and sparkle of the tree without having the tree take over the room. We aren't constantly bumping into tree branches and that seems to be keeping the ubiquitous balsam needles at bay as well, at least for now.

I have no desire to having a "matchy" or "elegant" Christmas tree. My mismatch of ornaments and Christmas decorations come from all sorts of stages in my life. We don't have a whole lot of homemade ornaments, which I suppose is indicative of the fact that we have no children (our own or nieces or nephews) in our lives. We have just a handful of homemade decorations:

My aunt made this little bell out of a teeny flower pot back in 1994. I know that, because "Ada '94" is written on the top of it. For a while, my aunt painted flower pots of all sizes to sell for supplemental income. The small business never really took off. I wonder where she'd go with an Etsy account . . .

Here's a "Tantalizer" circa 1970 via 2011 New Year's Crafting weekend. It is hideous. Therefore, I chose to display it as prominently as possible.
The vast majority of ornaments on the tree are mine. But Andy made this painted globe back in the day. The picture doesn't do it justice, but it really is quite pretty.

The most ornaments on the tree are Hallmark ornaments. That's because my grandmother is a Hallmark fanatic - we're talking like Hallmark Club card holding fanatic. It just isn't Christmas until you've gotten this year's ornament from Gramma.

As you might guess, through the last 25 Christmases, I've amassed quite a collection. These are some of my favorites:

Madame Alexander Irish Dancer. I got this either the Christmas before or the Christmas after I spent a semester in western Ireland.
I'm not sure when I got this little angel, but she reminds me so much of all the Sunday school Christmas pageants I was in. In fact, when you press her halo, she recites a Bible verse my mother said I once read during a pageant. I don't remember.

I got this little suitcase the Christmas during my six months living and working in London. My real life suitcase is almost identical to this ornament, right down to all the bulges!
This isn't a Hallmark ornament - it came from Harrod's Christmas World display. I picked it up during my time in London. Harrod's is well known for its teddy bears so a Christmas tree ornament that featured a teddy bear and the Harrod's green doorman outfit was just too much to resist.

Andy's declared this year's tree the prettiest Christmas tree that's ever been in the cabin. I've only seen two Christmas trees in the cabin - this year's and last year's- but if those are indeed the only two trees that have graced the cabin's living space then yes, I totally agree. Prettiest Christmas tree ever.

Is your Christmas tree up? What are some of your favorite ornaments? 




11 comments:

  1. I'm glad the Tantalizer has a place of honor. My Santaclops ornament is currently staring out from my tree as well. He watches over us all..

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  2. Haha I enjoyed this post. I love your tree!! I'm the same way, I don't do "matchy", I like to use my mismatched ornaments that have meaning from throughout my life. More sentimental that way :) Following you via Monster Hop! Please feel free to follow back :)

    www.yeewittlethings.blogspot.com
    www.twitter.com/yeewittlethings

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  3. Your balsam tree is lovely, and they smell nice also. Not like those other trees (I agree some are quite stinky). You still have snow there too, I am envious, our snow has all melted. I will keep my fingers crossed, they are saying a dusting of snow Christmas morning!
    Merry Christmas
    ~Diane

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  4. Cat piss, huh? Now I gotta go smell a spruce!

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  5. following from the monster hop! My tree is not at all elegant, just special in its own way...kids ornaments mostly, but some from our childhoods also...love it! Hope you will visit:
    http://childhoodmyths.net/blog

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  6. YAAAY ADA!!! Christmas trees, ornaments! I'm looooving it. Oh and my favorite ornament on your tree is the little suitcase, it's very cute!

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  7. I just love to see other peoples' ornaments! I like the "tantalizer" haha- I might have to have a New Years craftathon!

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  8. Alas, my tantalizer fell apart in storage! I kept all the pieces, because I couldn't bear to throw it away. I'm glad yours lives on.

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  9. Your tree is lovely! Tall and skinny is what I prefer too. We don't do matchy-matchy either. It is fun to pull out all the ornaments from different periods in our lives. Although I do love the painted glass ornaments of the old German style.

    It was fun to get the close-ups of your fav ornaments!

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  10. Your tree reminds me of the slender cast-off Christmas tree we got from a friend. After her mid-December family Christmas gathering, she was ready to toss the tree, but offered it instead to my family. Sure, I'll take a free tree.

    With its sparse branches and slender build, it, too, is perfect for my small house. The look is so organic and old-fashioned and reminds me of the trees of my youth. No way is it a shaped tree. I love the natural look and vow to find a tree just like this every year.

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  11. We did put up our sad but charming fake charlie brown-esque christmas tree. I have an ornament from my Grandma for every year since '89 and I just love them. We had been planning to buy an ornament every year for us, but we haven't gotten our 2011 ornament yet. Yeah, we're awesome. haha.

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