civilized ku # 68 ~ The old man's eyes boggled. Over come by art.

Rusticated Xmas tree • click to embiggenSo last evening I'm talking to friend on the phone and trying to describe our Xmas tree to him. After a few minutes of my descriptive ramblings, he thought it might be better if I just put a picture of it on my blog. "Good idea", I said.

The tree is a big departure from our regular fare - as big a 'live' tree as can fit through the front door - Douglas firs are my preference, one handed down from my father. A tree which would be decorated with ornaments acquired over the years, some with special meaning, some not.

This year, thanks to the wife's luck, we have an artificial tree. I say "luck" because she won it at a charity fundraising event. Seems that one day she was at a mall where on display were 39 Xmas trees that had been decorated by 39 different organizations. For $20 you could buy 6 tickets, each of which could be put a of your choice box (one for each tree) for a raffle for each tree.

The wife really liked a tree that was decorated with 'rustic' handmade ornaments - bark-ring garland, entwined twig garland, bark ornaments, pine cones, etc. Her reasoning was that if we won it, we would take the ornaments off the artificial tree and put them on a 'live' tree.

Well, we won it. But ...

It was delivered by a friend who brought it in the front door and set it right where our tree normally sits. We plugged it in, and, the snap a few sparks and a quick wiff of ozone later, viola. Just like that, a fully decorated Xmas tree. No fuss. No muss. Maybe, just little too 'perfect' and a little too easy but, hey, there it was, ready to go.

However, it became apparent that to disassemble it would be to destroy it. It really was an all-of-a-piece thing, kind of like a piece of installation art. And that's how I think of it - more as a piece of xmas decoration because it's not a tree. Never was. Never will be.

But, just like Little Ralphie's dad (from A Christmas Story), who had his Major Award, we have our Major Prize - an Installation Art Xmas Tree. And, as an added bonus, just like the Major Award our tree is also "frah-geee-lay".

So, for that fresh piney smell, it's off to the tree farm for a lot of pine boughs and garland. After all, what's Xmas unless you kill a few trees.

FYI, if you watch the linked clip take note of Ralphie's mom's reaction to the 'Major Award'. It's a lot like the wife's reaction to my wanting to hang my Decay pictures in our kitchen.

Comments

[Don]

Very nice and I love the angle of the shot.