(Too
much still to do, too little time, so I'm re-posting this five-year-old
essay about my Christmas trees. It still applies--I've got those four
trees up now. But this year I expanded my tree collection, adding two more trees, just as I threatened in the original post. In the living room, near the large real tree, is a small white one with some of the handmade ornaments I bought in Mexico and India. And in the family room, a small green tree has appeared decorated with the forest creatures I've collected, mostly made out of twigs and straw and wood. I couldn't resist giving them a tree of their own. And I keep thinking of new tree themes for next year. As for the Christmas cards,
about half or them are in the mail and the other half will be late--as
usual.)
Right now I should be addressing Christmas cards but I'm in the grip of
my seasonal craziness which involves decorating...lots...of...trees. Each
with a theme. In every room. Well, not EVERY room because my husband
has started to crack down on that--especially in his office, despite the
lovely all white (sprayed snow and icicles and pine cones) tree I did
one year. It shed.
Above is the Woodland Creatures tree, new for 2015, made up mostly of ornaments I got from Pier One (all at least 30 per cent off, because it's the last minute.) I just couldn't resist these rustic little animals and birds made mostly of twigs and straw and natural products.(The star on top is a tiny starfish.) The gold stars seem to be made of twigs--I cut apart a Pier One garland to get them. Click on the photos to enlarge them.
And here below is the little white tree I decorated with my hammered, painted tin ornaments from Mexico and the lacquer-on-wood (I think) ornaments from India.
The Mexican tin ornaments are wonderfully crude and folk-y and the Indian ones are so carefully detailed and elegant, so each country really should each have its own tree.
At Thanksgiving 2015, with the help of kids and guests at the tree-trimming open house on Saturday night before Nicolas's baptism, we decorated the four trees that I always have. And here they are (in photos from 2010, but they look much the same in 2015).
With the peacocks, I also used lots of white butterflies (from the Dollar Store) and white birds and angel wings, so I guess the theme of the wonderful-smelling Real Tree this year would be wings.
In the dining room I always put a wire tree to show off my antique ornaments. And I put a wire from the tree to the window latch so that it (hopefully) can't get knocked over. You can see that we don't have snow yet in Massachusetts, unlike Minnesota, but we will soon.
Some of these ornaments are reproductions, but most are the real thing. My grandmother had a whole tree decorated with blown-glass birds with those spun glass tails and often a metal clip to hold it on the tree. I really love the fragile teapots once sold at every Woolworth's for pennies. They cost a lot more now. The blown-glass ornaments usually say "West Germany" on the metal cap. The glass ornaments that were once screw-in light bulbs were made in Japan between 1930 and 1950 and are a lot less likely to break.
In the library I always put my Shoe Tree, which started when the
Metropolitan Museum in New York first started selling ornaments based on
shoes in their collections.
This became a kind of mania and now I can't afford to buy the newest
ones from the Museum, but I've added lots of cunning real (baby-sized)
shoes, and people keep giving me more. My favorites on this tree are
the Chinese baby shoes that look like cats and the fur-lined baby
moccasins and the tiny Adidas sneakers.
On the porch I've put the Kitchen Tree, or Cookie and Candy Tree.
This was inspired by some friends who live in a tiny apartment and
decorate their tree only with cookies and candy and pretzels and candy
canes. Then, when Christmas is over, they put it all outside for the
birds and other New York fauna to enjoy.
As you can see, I've cheated quite a bit--adding ornaments that look
like kitchen utensils and non-edible gingerbread men and peppermints.
An authentic Kitchen Tree should have chains of real popcorn and
cranberries (which we did back when I had children small enough to enjoy
stringing them.)
Last year Trader Joe's sold little gingerbread men with holes already
punched in their heads so I could string them on the tree, but this year
the gingerbread men are frosted but the holes are missing, so I just
stabbed them with the wire hooks and it worked fine (and any that
broke, I ate, of course. They taste better frosted.)
That's four trees so far (six in 2015!)-- and I haven't shown you my
Santa Claus collection and the miniature town in the bay window in the
kitchen and the many creche scenes we have from around the world....But let's
face it, I have to get back to those Christmas cards.
