“Christmas Trees” -- January 19, 2009

A year ago I talked about all of the Christmas trees that we put up every year. So I had several comments asking for me to share them. Unfortunately, we had already taken them down! So I promised that I would share pictures of them this year. :-)

The first tree is our “All American Tree”. This tree is about four feet tall and all of the ornaments are of course red, white or blue! We put this one up in a corner of our finished basement. I have lots of red, white, and blue ornaments in my stash which will be added to this tree as they are stitched and finished.

The next tree is our “Fiber Optic Tree”. This was a gift from my parents many years ago. When lit, it rotates around in a circle. We place it on an inexpensive round table with a gold tablecloth. It came with a collection of gold ornaments. My mother spray painted dried Honesty plant gold which she added to the tree. It just glistens at night!

We also put up a “Tomato Cage Tree”. Many years ago, my parents made a tomato cage tree for us. The first step is to put the first tomato cage on the floor with the large round side on the floor. You then add the second tomato cage on top and drop it down so it sits on top of the first tomato cage forming a tree shape. You then wire them together. You then take a long lighted garland which you wrap loosely (you may need to wire to the cages) around the tomato cages. You now have a large green tree shape. You can then add ornaments and a tree topper of your choice. Ours has white and gold ornaments with a lighted star at the top. I was planning on taking a picture of this tree to share with you this year, but sigh… I forgot…

The next tree is the large “Christmas” tree. This tree is set up every year in what we call the music room. Most of the ornaments are hand made by me and many are stitched ornaments. I’ve also made a lot of jeweled Christmas balls over the years. I’ll be sharing these with you many of these ornaments over the next several weeks. We also have some memory ornaments and our children’s Hallmark ornaments on this tree. The family jokes that Mom’s decorating philosophy is that there should be no green showing on the tree!

Ummm… I guess I should now add that I don’t do simplistic minimalist decorating. :-)

We also put up a tree on our large kitchen counter/bar. The theme for the kitchen tree is blue and white, and snowman. We also have quite a few mini cookie cutters on the tree. It is fairly close to one of the lights but it does look nice in person.

The final tree that I can share with you this year is our “Raven’s Tree”. This one has been a lot of fun over the years as the Raven’s colors are primarily purple, black and gold. Not your typical Christmas colors. :-)

For the Raven’s tree, I purchased a two foot tree and then wrapped it in purple lights that I purchased during one Halloween season. We place it on an inexpensive round table with a gold tablecloth. We then added the buttons from the year that the Raven’s won the Super Bowl as ornaments. That year our local school received a donation of purple, gold, and white pompoms which are placed at the base of the tree on the gold tablecloth. I then took the purple and gold football necklaces that you can buy at party stores and cut them at one point so I could use them as garlands. I found purple and gold Ravens’ candy canes. The final decorations on the tree are small purple and gold ball ornaments and small purple light ornaments. We’ve also added some Raven’s stuffed animals and other items around the base of the tree and the base of the table. The Raven’s tree stays put up as long as the Raven’s are still playing. The year they won the Super Bowl it stayed up for a week after the Super Bowl!

I’ve always planned on making an Orioles tree. I’ve been collecting decorations and I have the orange lights but I haven’t purchased a tree yet. Maybe next year!

Each of our children have their own small trees which they setup in their rooms. We started a collection for each of them when they were very young so that they would have a starter tree when they were ready to leave home and setup housekeeping. Now that they are older, it’s up to them to decide if they want to set them up each year.

Cynthia
Windy Meadow