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Thursday, December 15, 2005

Christmas tree?

My family has a sort of running joke surrounding christmas trees. My father like everything to be pretty much perfect. He has a fake tree, (a real looking one though), whith perfect lights and perfectly placed ornaments, with garlands around the whole house and (electric) candles in all the windows. He has a very beautiful "perfect" style christmasy house. My mum has different tastes. In her house, we have the chinese new year figurines, which are very neat and OLD. (I think they have been passed down for some time now, but I'm not sure.) We have lights on the bush outside, and the sweetest little reject of a tree ever. We used to make fun of my mum and her Charlie Brown christmas tree and we'd sometimes make her get a "good one", but over the years, we've come to love her poor little tree with sprawled lights and our home-made-in-kindergarden-ornaments. This year, the tree is actually quite full (normally it's pretty straggely), but, it's lacking in the height department.

I give you: the tree!


No, we do not have an abnormally tall chair and lamp... our tree is TINY!!! There aren't any decorations on it yet, but we just put the lights on it the other day. (and by "put the lights on it", I mean I litterally threw them over top of the tree and called it a day.) I especially like the care I took in camouflaging the cord leading up to the lights. It's very nice.

The funny part is that normally when we put the decos on it, the branches struggle to hold up the paper plate circle, and the (broken) egg shell with sequins and yarn glued to it. Everyone always makes fun of our poor little tree, and my mum always defends it saying "well someone has to love the little ones!". She's proud of our tree! As pathetic and meager as it is, it's ours!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a darling little tree - I think its nice to have something not so "Martha Stewart" - I mean chrsitmas isn't about perfection - well it shouldn't be anyways. Its something that you can always remember your mom for. Plus, your mom is right - someone has to love the little ones.
On the other hand - I know how weird it is to have a "kindergarten tree". My mom stil insists on putting all our old home-made ornaments on - even the block of wood with a nail in it that my little sister made in preschool!
I'm glad your so proud of your charlie brown tree, it looks fabulous!!!

Anonymous said...

Just as an aside:
1. Your mother's trees always look special. Yes, we make fun of them, but we love the fact that she loves the trees.
2. Your father also has decorations on his tree that were made way back when including egg shell decorations and styrofoam balls with yarns and things.
3. Nothing is EVER perfect. Even when you spend hours putting things up and around and carefully lay things here and there. I think it is the imperfections that make them so beautiful.
4. When your kids aren't with you, one can lose interest in doing all the hours of decorating.....

Dee said...

I think it’s a beautiful tree....in my house we have somehow become lost between the two worlds. We used to always have a Charlie Brown tree, and I remember many years when it was vertically challenged, but my dad has since found a place where he gets big bushy beautifully proportioned trees. But we still have all kinds of kindergarten ornaments on it, and I love them. I can actually still remember making some of them.

Are kids still allowed to make Christmas Decorations in school or has that too been outlawed?

Blogosaurus Rex said...

It's a cute tree... I have one just like it. The rest of my family on the other hand, like to get mammoth trees, whether real or fake.

kristen said...

But I can't wait to get to your house and see Christmas!!!!
It's one of my favourite things.

Heather said...

K, that was directed to Papa right? Yeah it's Christmasy, but not AS Christmasy! (At least when I was there, but that WAS during the Gas leak, so maybe I was hallucinating.) And yes, I will admit you DO have homemade decorations, but you also have expensive and beautiful rotating decorations and little sets here and there... I'm not bashing either one, I love them both. It's just so funny how you both are so different!

kristen said...

Yes, I was referring to Papa and his Christmas house.

We were thinking of buying a couple of those taller bamboo shoots and a bit vase and putting some ornaments on them. That way we aren't spending money on a tree that we won't really be enjoying.

Next year we'll get something for sure.