Oh Christmas tree

The least blurry shot I got - my camera has trouble focusing.



Properly floating



Somewhere between the Christmases of yesteryear and now, I developed a slight obsession over a certain way to decorate a tree: MY way. I suppose I am to a certain extent a product of my upbringing: I can remember pretty early in my life being shown a method to string Christmas lights where you start from the inside and individually wrap branches toward the outside (Martha agrees).

This year I wanted to deviate from our multicolored lights of the past two years and use white lights – I personally think white lights add a classy and clean finish. However, somehow I got confused and thought that we did have white lights for the tree (I’m still not sure how I managed to convince myself we had them – obviously we’d used colored lights because I decided to make the switch). By the time I figured out we didn’t have them, the tree was already in the stand and I didn’t want to wait to decorate or trek out to buy lights. I whined to Mark about having to use multicolored lights again and he said they gave the tree “personality.” So… my tree has a great personality.

Improperly resting

And don’t even get me started on ornaments. I grew up with a fake tree, so we could bend the branches to hold the ornaments however we wanted. This isn’t so easy with a real tree, so I have to find the perfect spot so each ornament can properly dangle. I can’t handle when an ornament rests on a branch – it has to look like it’s suspended in mid-air. Floating, if you will. 

Now I constantly find myself glancing over at the tree and trying to find ways to make it better. This ornament is too close to that one. That branch is awfully dark – is there any way I can twist the lights to make them more noticeable? What can I put in this empty hole between branches? And why does that spider insist on continually making his web at the top of the tree? It’s a curse.

And don’t worry, I won’t judge your tree! This only applies to my own tree. The one with personality.