O Christmas Tree

For the last 20 years or so, I’ve been buying a tree, taking it home, lugging it up the stairs, standing on ladders to get the decorations down from the top shelf of the closet, standing on ladders to get the decorations on the tree, spilling water and knocking off ornaments when I watered it, vacuuming up the needles, and when the season is over, doing all of that in reverse.

I never looked forward to any of the lugging or standing on ladders. Additionally, a friend who has something like the same kind of asthma that I do has been raving about how much better her Christmases are now that she has an artificial tree. I didn’t know that mine would be, but I thought it might be worth trying.

I never wanted a green artificial tree, but I did spend some time thinking about a silver one. But really, they look tacky.

Then I was listening to the local PBS station noontime talk show discuss artificial trees, and someone called in and said that they were just putting up their Possibilitree. It sounded just like what I had been looking for — light, easy to store, and not aggressively artifical.

There should be an intermediate size between the three foot one and the five foot one you have to suspend from the ceiling, but the three foot one is certainly light and easy to store and decorate.

I spent some time figuring out how to light it, and decided on two spotlights with color-changing bulbs. Here’s what it looked like before I added decorations.

In addition to the colors on the tree itself, it made interesting colored shadows on the ceiling.

I’m thinking of putting it up again with eggs on it at Easter.